How do you print the variable name when the variable points to an object in Python

Question

I'm new to python and coding in general. In the code below how do I get "turn" to print "june" or "july" instead of <turtle.Turtle object at 0x0405D730>

def main():
    wn = turtle.Screen() #Creates a screen
    #Define your turtles here
    june = turtle.Turtle()
    july = turtle.Turtle()
    june.shape('turtle')
    july.shape('turtle')
    june.color('blue')
    july.color('red')
    july.goto(0, 50) #move second turtle to a different starting location

    turtleTurn()
    turn = turtleTurn()
    if turn == 0:
        turn = june
    else:
        turn = july


    while isInScreen(wn, turn) and sameSpot(june, july):
        if turn == june:
            turn = july
        else:
            turn = june

        turtleMove(turn)
        if isInScreen(wn, turn) == False:
            print("and the winning is ", turn)


    wn.exitonclick()

main()

Depends, what exactly is the function turtleTurn(), what does it do and why is it called twice? — Sebastian Hätälä, Jul 03 '20 at 22:58
Does this answer your question? [How to print instances of a class using print()?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1535327/how-to-print-instances-of-a-class-using-print) — , Jul 03 '20 at 23:02
shatala, that is just me being stupid. Dmitry that might help but I'm so new I don't understand what I'm reading. — Zelow, Jul 03 '20 at 23:11

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 03 '20 at 23:17

1

You can just store a name in each Turtle (after creating it) and refer to the name attribute to print it:

june.name = 'june'
july.name = 'july'
...
print("and the winning is ", turn.name)

answered Jul 03 '20 at 23:17

Dennis Sparrow

938
6
13

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 03 '20 at 23:21

You can do this in many ways, and one of them is this :

my_var = "sss"

my_var_name = [ k for k,v in locals().items() if v == my_var][0]

print("Variable name is :   ", my_var_name)

Here we create a virable "my_var", when we declare a virable he is saved in local virables and u can access them by using "locals().items()" which return all of them. And by the for you iterate on them and when u find the v == to the virable u get it in "my_var_name".

wjandrea · Answer 3 · 2020-07-03T23:24:35.847

You can't get the variable name itself, at least not easily. See the explanation here: Getting the name of a variable as a string -- kindall's answer

Instead you can compare the object identity and print its name manually:

print("and the winning is", 'july' if turn is july else 'june')

Though for what it's worth, the most generic solution is to use a dict. See How do I create a variable number of variables? For example, starting with something like this:

turtles = {month: turtle.Turtle() for month in ['june', 'july']}

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 09 '20 at 20:23

You just need to wrap june and july with the value wrapper from python-varname:

from varname import Wrapper

def main():
    wn = turtle.Screen() #Creates a screen
    #Define your turtles here
    june = Wrapper(turtle.Turtle()) # <- then, use june.value to access turtle 
    july = Wrapper(turtle.Turtle()) # <- and june/july.name to access the name
    june.value.shape('turtle')
    july.value.shape('turtle')
    june.value.color('blue')
    july.value.color('red')
    july.value.goto(0, 50) #move second turtle to a different starting location

    turtleTurn()
    turn = turtleTurn()
    if turn == 0:
        turn = june
    else:
        turn = july


    while isInScreen(wn, turn.value) and sameSpot(june.value, july.value):
        if turn.value == june.value:
            turn = july
        else:
            turn = june

        turtleMove(turn.value)
        if isInScreen(wn, turn.value) == False:
            print("and the winning is ", turn.name)


    wn.exitonclick()

main()

The package is hosted at https://github.com/pwwang/python-varname.

I am the author of the package. Let me know if you have any questions using it.

How do you print the variable name when the variable points to an object in Python

4 Answers4