Script file rules
A Python script file must adhere to only one simple rule: it must be pure text. In some cases, a poorly-chosen filename can lead to problems, so we'll add two recommendations that are often helpful:
- The content must be pure text; ideally encoded in UTF-8, although ASCII is also popular.
- The filename should follow the Python identifier rules. It should start with a letter and use only letters, digits, and the
_character. Filenames that begin and end with__(two underscores) are reserved and have special meanings for Python. - The extension should be
.py.
The two additional recommendations are essential for writing modules and packages, but are not required to write a simple script.
A script is simply a sequence of statements; it's identical to what we might do at the REPL prompt with only one difference: a script has no implicit printed output. We must use the print() function in a script to see any results. In larger applications, we often use the logging module...
