What is the purpose of the single underscore “_” v

Question

What is the meaning of _ after for in this code?

if tbh.bag:
   n = 0
   for _ in tbh.bag.atom_set():
      n += 1

Answer 1

_ has 3 main conventional uses in Python:

1. To hold the result of the last executed expression(/statement) in an interactive interpreter session. This precedent was set by the standard CPython interpreter, and other interpreters have followed suit
2. For translation lookup in i18n (see the gettext documentation for example), as in code like: raise forms.ValidationError(_("Please enter a correct username"))
3. As a general purpose "throwaway" variable name to indicate that part of a function result is being deliberately ignored, as in code like: label, has_label, _ = text.partition(':')

The latter two purposes can conflict, so it is necessary to avoid using _ as a throwaway variable in any code block that also uses it for i18n translation (many folks prefer a double-underscore, __, as their throwaway variable for exactly this reason).

Answer 2

Underscore _ is considered as "I don't Care" or "Throwaway" variable in Python

• The python interpreter stores the last expression value to the special variable called _.

  >>> 10 
  10
  
  >>> _ 
  10
  
  >>> _ * 3 
  30
  

• The underscore _ is also used for ignoring the specific values. If you don’t need the specific values or the values are not used, just assign the values to underscore.

  Ignore a value when unpacking

  x, _, y = (1, 2, 3)
  
  >>> x
  1
  
  >>> y 
  3
  

  Ignore the index

  for _ in range(10):     
      do_something()
  

Answer 3

There are 5 cases for using the underscore in Python.

1. For storing the value of last expression in interpreter.

2. For ignoring the specific values. (so-called “I don’t care”)

3. To give special meanings and functions to name of vartiables or functions.

4. To use as ‘Internationalization(i18n)’ or ‘Localization(l10n)’ functions.

5. To separate the digits of number literal value.

Here is a nice article with examples by mingrammer.

Answer 4

It's just a variable name, and it's conventional in python to use _ for throwaway variables. It just indicates that the loop variable isn't actually used.