In working on a proposal that might result in the creation of a new keyword, I needed to ascertain what names were used extensively in existing Python code. Out of random curiosity, I asked my script what names were the most commonly used. The script responded with 21854 names and a total of 297164 references, averaging 13-14 refs per name.
A good number of names are referenced just once - set and never referenced. They're there for applications to use. That takes out 6217 names. But I'm more interested in the ones that see a lot of use. By far the most common name is 'self', for obvious reasons; after that, it's a fairly steady drop-off. The most popular names in the standard library are... *drumroll* 45298 - self 3750 - os 3744 - name 3166 - i 3140 - s 2685 - value 2648 - a 2451 - len 2348 - c 2331 - sys 2255 - b 2238 - line 2132 - print 2131 - x Few surprises there. The os and sys modules are used extensively, and short variable names are reused frequently. To the print-detractors: That's two thousand uses in the standard library, more than any other single function bar 'len'! (And by the way, this is ignoring any file with /test/ in the name.) I find the pairing of 'name' and 'value' interesting. There are 40% more names than values in Python, apparently. And on that bombshell, as they say on Top Gear, it's time to end! ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
