[Beginer Question] I heard about python needing somesort of_VariableName_ boiler plate?

[Benjamin Kaplan]

On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 2:18 PM,  <bradenf at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry that is what I mean. What is it for?
> Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry.
>

What is what for? There is no boiler plate on variable names. *BY
CONVENTION*, variables and methods with a special meaning will start
and end with two underscores. *BY CONVENTION* something that you want
to identify as an internal variable (what would be private in
languages that enforce this) is prefixed with a single underscore. But
neither of these are actually enforced by the language.

For instance, an object's doc-string is stored as it's __doc__
attribute. The constructor is the __init__ method. The method that
controls attribute access (which you can override) is __getattr__.
Using str(object) to get  the string representation works by calling
the object's __str__ method. a + b is the same thing as a.__add__(b)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: MRAB <python at mrabarnett.plus.com>
> Sender: python-list-bounces+bradenf=hotmail.com at python.org
> Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2010 17:33:22
> To: <python-list at python.org>
> Reply-To: python-list at python.org
> Subject: Re: [Beginer Question] I heard about python needing some
>        sort    of_VariableName_ boiler plate?
>
> On 01/11/2010 04:51, Ben Finney wrote:
>> bradenf at hotmail.com writes:
>>
>>> Sorry, to clarify I heard that when you declare a variable in python
>>> you have to use some sort of standard boiler plate _variable_ however
>>> this has not been my experience using IDLE so is this even true?
>>
>> I don't know what “some sort of boiler plate _variable_” might mean.
>>
>> Can you point to someone's actual message saying this, so we can see
>> what they might be talking about?
>>
> Perhaps the OP means:
>
>     if __name__ == "__main__":
>         ...
>
> although the "declare a variable" bit has me puzzled.
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