You want to determine the name of the currently running function, e.g. to create error messages that don't need to be changed when copied to other functions. Function _getframe of module sys does this and much more.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 | # use sys._getframe() -- it returns a frame object, whose attribute
# f_code is a code object, whose attribute co_name is the name:
import sys
this_function_name = sys._getframe().f_code.co_name
# the frame and code objects also offer other useful information:
this_line_number = sys._getframe().f_lineno
this_filename = sys._getframe().f_code.co_filename
# also, by calling sys._getframe(1), you can get this information
# for the *caller* of the current function. So you can package
# this functionality up into your own handy functions:
def whoami():
import sys
return sys._getframe(1).f_code.co_name
me = whoami()
# this uses argument 1, because the call to whoami is now frame 0.
# and similarly:
def callersname():
import sys
return sys._getframe(2).f_code.co_name
him = callersname()
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Inspired by Recipe 10.4 in O'Reilly's Perl Cookbook. Python's sys._getframe(), new in 2.1, offers information equivalent to Perl's builtin caller(), __LINE__ and __FILE__. If you need this for older Python releases, see recipe http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/52315, "Obtaining the name of a function/method".