Shebang or Hashbang for modules or not?

[Steve Holden]

Michael Hoffman wrote:
> Steven W. Orr wrote:
>> On Saturday, Apr 21st 2007 at 19:18 +0100, quoth Michael Hoffman:
>>
>> =>Chris Lasher wrote:
>> =>> Should a Python module not intended to be executed have shebang/
>> =>> hashbang (e.g., "#!/usr/bin/env python") or not? I'm used to having a
>> =>> shebang in every .py file but I recently heard someone argue that
>> =>> shebangs were only appropriate for Python code intended to be
>> =>> executable (i.e., run from the command line).
>> =>
>> =>Personally I include it in all of them, as part of boilerplate in a 
>> =>template.
>>
>> I'd recommend againt it. The shebang doesn't do you any good unless it's 
>> also in the presence  of a file that has its executable bit set. 
> 
> It doesn't do any bad either, so I don't understand why you would 
> recommend against it.
> 
> And the bash function I use to create new files from the template also 
> does chmod a+x.
> 
> Not to mention that I have emacs set such that things with shebangs at 
> the top are automatically chmod a+x, so in my programming environment, 
> having a shebang on files I create and being executable are one and the 
> same.
> 
>> For example, let's leave python out for a second: I have a shell script. 
>> And I also have lots of files which are not intended to be executed which 
>> are also shell scripts, but which are sucked in by the shell "." or 
>> "source" command (which is *somewhat* analogous to python's import). Lots 
>> of these shell "library" scripts can't execute as standalone. The same 
>> thing is possible with pything scripts.
>>
>> Of course, anything that has 
>> if __name__ == "__main__":
>> in it should always have a shebang and be executable.
> 
> That's in my template as well. :)
> 
> I try to write all my modules so that they can easily be adapted to run 
> as scripts, and all my scripts so that they can easily be adapted to use 
> as modules. This has served me well many, many times. I see no reasons 
> to create an artificial barrier to doing this by leaving the shebang out 
> of files where it has no ill effect.

If you ever create a module that *shouldn't be run you can always put

if __name__ == "__main__":
   print "Do not run this script: it is a module for import only"

at the end of it. But what's the point?

regards
  Steve
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