How Can I Get a Python Variable\'s Name as a String?

Mapping Variable Names to Values

In Python, variables are typically accessed by their names, providing a direct and straightforward way to manipulate and store data. However, there may be situations where you need to obtain the name of a variable as a string.

One potential approach is to leverage Python's introspection capabilities. While Python does not natively support fetching the name of a variable as a string, it does provide methods like locals() and vars(), which can be leveraged to analyze the local or global variables within a specific scope.

In the specific example provided, the aim is to automatically populate a dictionary with variable names and values. Python allows you to create a dictionary by passing keyword arguments. However, you desire a more automated approach.

To achieve this, you can employ a loop to iterate through the variables in the local scope (using locals()). For each variable, you can then inspect its value and check if it matches the desired value. If so, you retrieve the variable's name from the loop's iteration variable (k).

An example of this approach is as follows:

a = 1
for k, v in list(locals().iteritems()):
    if v is a:
        a_as_str = k

In this example, the loop iterates through all variables in the local scope, retrieving their names and values. When it encounters the variable a with the value 1, it assigns its name, a, to the variable a_as_str as a string. The result is that you now have a variable that holds the name of the variable a as a string, allowing you to use it for further processing or manipulation.

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