Special Attribute Names

As part of creating a class definition, Python adds a number of special attributes. These are informational in nature, and cannot not be easily be changed except by redefining the class or function, or reimporting the module.

__name__

The class name.

__module__

The module in which the class was defined.

__dict__

The dictionary which contains the object's attributes and methods.

__bases__

The base classes for this class. These are also called superclasses.

__doc__

The documentation string. This is part of the response produced by the help function.

Here's an example of how the class docstring is used to produce the help results for a class.

import random
print random.Random.__doc__
help(random.Random)