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5.2.1 Identifiers (Names)

An identifier occurring as an atom is a reference to a local, global or built-in name binding. If a name is assigned to anywhere in a code block (even in unreachable code), and is not mentioned in a `global` statement in that code block, then it refers to a local name throughout that code block. When it is not assigned to anywhere in the block, or when it is assigned to but also explicitly listed in a `global` statement, it refers to a global name if one exists, else to a built-in name (and this binding may dynamically change).5.1

When the name is bound to an object, evaluation of the atom yields that object. When a name is not bound, an attempt to evaluate it raises a `NameError` exception.

Private name mangling: when an identifier that textually occurs in a class definition begins with two or more underscore characters and does not end in two or more underscores, it is considered a private name of that class. Private names are transformed to a longer form before code is generated for them. The transformation inserts the class name in front of the name, with leading underscores removed, and a single underscore inserted in front of the class name. For example, the identifier `__spam` occurring in a class named `Ham` will be transformed to `_Ham__spam`. This transformation is independent of the syntactical context in which the identifier is used. If the transformed name is extremely long (longer than 255 characters), implementation defined truncation may happen. If the class name consists only of underscores, no transformation is done.

#### Footnotes

... change).5.1
  The Python interpreter provides a useful set of predefined built-in functions. It is not recommended to reuse (hide) these names with self defined objects. See the Python Library Reference for the descriptions of built-in functions and methods.