Question

I tried several ways to change the function name in the definition, but they failed.

>>> def f():
        pass
>>> f.__name__
'f'
>>> def f():
        f.__name__ = 'new name'
>>> f.__name__
'f'
>>> def f():
        self.__name__ = 'new name'
>>> f.__name__
'f'

But I can change the name attribute after defining it.

>>> def f():
        pass
>>> f.__name__ = 'new name'
>>> f.__name__
'new name'

Any way to change/set it in the definition (other than using a decorator)?

Answer 1

The function body is not executed until you execute the function. You could use a decorator though:

def rename(newname):
    def decorator(f):
        f.__name__ = newname
        return f
    return decorator

And then use it like this:

@rename('new name')
def f():
    pass
print f.__name__

However, the function is still only reachable as f.