How to get a list of variables in specific Python module?

Question

Let's assume I have the following file structure:

data.py

foo = []
bar = []
abc = "def"

core.py

import data
# do something here #
# a = ...
print a
# ['foo', 'bar', 'abc']

I need to get all the variables defined in data.py file. How can I achieve that? I could use dir(), but it returns all the attributes of the module including __name__ and so on.

Answer 1

print [item for item in dir(adfix) if not item.startswith("__")]

Is usually the recipe for doing this, but it begs the question.

Why?