Use of __main__.py

mainpython.md

The use of __main__.py to create executables

myprojectfolder/
    |_ __main__.py
    |_ __init__.py
    |_ my_program.py

Being __main__.py:

print("Hello")

if you do

python myprojectfolder
Hello

it can also work in submodules if you have a subfolder just use the dot ``python myprojectfolder.subfolder and the main inside that folder will be executed

Python will execute the code in __main__.py as this file is an entry point.

You can also zip the folder

 python -m zipfile -c myproject.zip myprojectfolder

and now you can get rid of myprojectfolder source code and run

python myproject.zip

also you can easily obfuscate it and turn in to a binary like program

echo '#!/usr/bin/env python' >> myprogram
cat myproject.zip >>myprogram
chmod +x myprogram

Now you can delete myproject.zip and run

python myprogram

as seen on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oTh1CXRaQ0

Great stuff! Thanks!

Hi, This may seem to be silly question. But I am curious to know why developers/programmers are not including main function in their code when they push it to a git repository? Is there any specific reason for it?

This was helpful! Thank you.

I've run into a problem where there doesn't seem to be any way (other than manually hacking the path) to expose the other code in the module to main.py from init.py. Relative imports fail. Any tips?