Starting a Python Program

• Steve Jones - SSC Editor

  SSC Guru

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  December 23, 2020 at 12:00 am

  #3816266

  Comments posted to this topic are about the item Starting a Python Program

• December 23, 2020 at 3:06 pm

  This was removed by the editor as SPAM

• Jason-

  SSCrazy

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  December 29, 2020 at 9:55 pm

  #3825307

  Not trying to be the semantics police so I'll relinquish the stolen badge right after this, but since I struggled thinking this was a trick question I thought I'd share...

  Technically, it's the first statement, not a function at all... A function will not be executed by itself just because it was defined, even if you name it "__main__" or "main" Python won't execute the function without it first being called. You can name a module __main__.py in a package and that file will be executed with the -m argument, but still not a function.

  The "if __name__ == '__main__':" is a command/statement not a function (not sure what the right term here is).

  The print statement below would not run just by existing in a function named __main__

  def __main__():
      print('This is my main function')

  For that to work you need a statement or command that calls __main__()

  def __main__():
      print('This is my main function')
  
  
  __main__()
  

  or

  def __main__():
      print('This is my main function')
  
  
  # ensures this only runs when executed as a script/program and not when being imported as a module
  if __name__ == '__main__':
      __main__()

  -