Get List of Classes

[Tim Chase]

> Is there a method or attribute I can use to get a list of
> classes defined or in-use within my python program? I tried
> using pyclbr and readmodule but for reason that is dogslow.

Well, given that so  much in python is considered a class, the 
somewhat crude code below walks an object/module and emits 
details regarding what's going on.  I couldn't find any nice 
method for determining if a variable referenced a module other 
than checking to see if that item had both a "__file__" and a 
"__name__" attribute.  Likewise, the check for whether something 
is an object is a bit crude.


 >>> def inspect(thing, name = '', indent=0):
...     if hasattr(thing, "__file__") and hasattr(thing, "__name__"):
...             #assume it's a module
...             print "%sModule %s" % ("\t" * indent, thing.__name__)
...             for subthing in dir(thing):
...                     objname = ".".join([name, 
subthing]).lstrip(".")
...                     inspect(eval(objname),
...                             objname, indent+1)
...     elif isinstance(thing, object):
...             print "%s%s is an object" % ("\t" * indent, name)
...
 >>> import m1
 >>> # m1 is a junk module that references module "m2" and has
 >>> # some junk classes in it
 >>> inspect(m1, "m1")
Module m1
         m1.M1Class is an object
         m1.M1ObjectClass is an object
         m1.__builtins__ is an object
         m1.__doc__ is an object
         m1.__file__ is an object
         m1.__name__ is an object
         Module m2
                 m1.m2.M2Class is an object
                 m1.m2.M2ObjectClass is an object
                 m1.m2.__builtins__ is an object
                 m1.m2.__doc__ is an object
                 m1.m2.__file__ is an object
                 m1.m2.__name__ is an object



You could also filter out builtin object properties by wrapping 
that last print statement in something like

	if not name.startswith("_"): print ...

which might cut down on some of the noise.

Just a few ideas.

-tkc