Why does namedtuple in python need a name?

Question

Why do we need to mention the name Card for namedtuple like below?

import collections

Card = collections.namedtuple('Card', ['rank', 'suit'])

I think a simple Card = collections.namedtuple(['rank', 'suit']) can actually give the same effect right?

For example I can have the same information in a dict like:

card = dict({'rank': 'A', 'suit': 'spade'})

Answer 1

No, that won't give the same effect.

collections.namedtuple: Returns a new tuple subclass named typename...

namedtuple returns a subclass of the tuple type, not a tuple instance.

The name parameter specifies the class name of the new subclass, just as you would define a regular Python class and give it a name:

>>> from collections import namedtuple
>>> namedtuple('Card', ['rank', 'suit'], verbose=True)
class Card(tuple):
    'Card(rank, suit)'

    __slots__ = ()

    _fields = ('rank', 'suit')

    def __new__(_cls, rank, suit):
        'Create new instance of Card(rank, suit)'
        return _tuple.__new__(_cls, (rank, suit))
    ...

A quick type check clears every doubt:

>>> type(_), issubclass(_, tuple)
(<class 'type'>, True) 

So there, you have namedtuple, a factory function that returns a subclass of a tuple.