Top-rated recipes tagged "reflection"

Get names and types of all attributes of a Python module (Python)

2016-10-06T17:21:42-07:00

Python recipe 580705 by Vasudev Ram (documentation, introspection, modules, reflection, type).

This recipe shows how to get the names and types of all the attributes of a Python module. This can be useful when exploring new modules (either built-in or third-party), because attributes are mostly a) data elements or b) functions or methods, and for either of those, you would like to know the type of the attribute, so that, if it is a data element, you can print it, and if it is a function or method, you can print its docstring to get brief help on its arguments, processsing and outputs or return values, as a way of learning how to use it.

The code for the recipe includes an example call to it, at the end of the code. Note that you first have to import the modules that you want to introspect in this way.

Find the arity of a Python function (Python)

2017-01-30T14:09:47-08:00

Python recipe 580753 by Vasudev Ram (functions, introspection, python, python2, reflection).

This recipe shows how to find the arity of a given Python function. The arity of a function is the number of arguments the function takes. The recipe uses the inspect module of Python.

More details and sample output (including some limitations) here:

https://jugad2.blogspot.in/2017/01/finding-arity-of-python-function.html

Two quick functions for object introspection (Python)

2017-01-14T22:35:17-08:00

Python recipe 580747 by Vasudev Ram (attributes, debugging, functions, introspection, methods, objects, reflection).

This recipe shows two quick-and-clean :) utility functions for introspection of Python objects. They are meant to be used while working interactively in the reular Python shell or in the IPython shell. Both of them display attributes of any given object passed as the argument. The first function displays all attributes. The second function only displays atttributes that do not begin and end with a double underscore, so as to filter out "dunder" methods a.k.a. "special" methods - like __len__, __str__, __repr__, etc. The first function - oa(o) , where o is some object - does the same as dir(o), but is useful - in IPython - because, dir(o) output will scroll off the screen if the output is long, since it prints the attributes vertically, one per line, while oa(o) prints them horizontally, so has less chance of the output scrolling off, and the output also occupies fewer lines on the screen, so is easier to scan quickly. The second function - oar(o) - is like oa(o), but filters out attribute names that begin and end with a dunder. So it is useful in both IPython and Python.

More information and outputs here:

https://jugad2.blogspot.in/2017/01/two-simple-python-object-introspection.html