Can I find out (dynamically) where a method is defined?

[Gary Herron]

Lie wrote:
> On Jun 9, 10:28 pm, allendow... at gmail.com wrote:
>   
>> Hi All.
>>
>> In a complex inheritance hierarchy, it is sometimes difficult to find
>> where a
>> method is defined.  I thought it might be possible to get this info
>> from the
>> method object itself, but it looks like maybe not.  Here is the test
>> case I tried:
>>
>> class A(object):
>>     def method():
>>         pass
>>
>> class B(A):
>>     pass
>>
>> a = A()
>> b = B()
>>
>> print a.method
>> print b.method
>>
>> Since B inherits method from A, I thought that printing b.method might
>> tell
>> me that the definition is in A, but no.  Here's the output:
>>
>> <bound method A.method of <__main__.A object at 0xb7d55e0c>>
>> <bound method B.method of <__main__.B object at 0xb7d55e2c>>
>>
>> This in indistinguishable from the case where B overrides method.
>>
>> So, is there any way to inspect a method to see where (in what class)
>> it
>> is defined?
>>     

You might try the inspect module.  It can give you lots of information 
about a method (even including the file name and line number where it 
was defined).  Poke around and perhaps you can find exactly what you are 
looking for.

Gary Herron