[Python-ideas] PEP x: Static module/package inspection

[anatoly techtonik]

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 4:35 PM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 1:28 AM, Michael Foord <fuzzyman at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On a simple level, all of this is already "obtainable" by using the ast
>> module that can parse Python code. I would love to see a "python-object"
>> layer on top of this that will take an ast for a module (or other object)
>> and return something that represents the same object as the ast.
>>
>> So all module level objects will have corresponding objects - where they are
>> Python objects (builtin-literals) then they will represented exactly. For
>> classes and functions you'll get an object back that has the same attributes
>> plus some metadata (e.g. for functions /  methods what arguments they take
>> etc).
>>
>> That is certainly doable and would make introspecting-without-executing a
>> lot simpler.
>
> The existing 'clbr' (class browser) module in the stdlib also attempts
> to play in this same space. I wouldn't say it does it particularly
> *well* (since it's easy to confuse with valid Python constructs), but
> it tries.

Unfortunately http://docs.python.org/library/pyclbr.html misses info
about variables.

In the meanwhile I've patches my `astdump` module even further:
- function to query top level variables changed from get_top_vars() to
top_level_vars(), which is now accepts filename as a parameter. Now it
will be even more convenient to use it for generating `setup.py` for
simple modules. Sample `setup.py` generator is included.

http://pypi.python.org/pypi/astdump/1.0
--
anatoly t.