If I wanted to get the current module, e.g. to reload it, I would do:
import sys sys.modules[__name__] Is there a better way to do this (e.g. not involving __name__)? Better in this context means more idiomatic, more portable, more robust, or more...any of the other things we usually desire in our software.
I use python 2, but answers for python 3 will no doubt be useful to others.
There is no more idiomatic method to get the current module object from sys.modules than what you used.
__name__ is set by Python on import, essentially doing:
module_object = import_py_file(import_name) module_object.__name__ = import_name sys.modules[import_name] = module_object so the __name__ reference is exactly what you want to use here.
__name__ == '__main__') - but it does. That module indeed gets stored as sys.modules['__main__']. (It could appear a second time, under its "real name", if it tries to import itself.)
sys.modules[__name__]is exactly right.__name__, and explains why there are no better alternatives that can avoid any of them in Python as it is today (3.4—and of course it's even more true for 2.7). (Despite the title, it proposed a few related changes, not just adding__qualname__, like a special metapath hook to make__main__and the real module name act equivalent.)