What is the "if __name__ == '__main__'" block called?

Question

I saw someone on a Python post refer to it in some way, but I cannot for the life of me find it again. It was a pretty short, colloquial term, something like "gutter" or "blunk".

Is it a Python thing or do other languages call it something too?

Answer 1

In the documentation up to Python 3.3 it's referred to as a "conditional script" stanza:

It is this environment in which the idiomatic “conditional script” stanza causes a script to run:

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

This term is gone since 3.4:

a common idiom for conditionally executing code in a module when it is run as a script or with python -m but not when it is imported:

if __name__ == "__main__":
    # execute only if run as a script
    main()