Getting a list of all modules

[Terry Reedy]

On 7/31/2014 6:41 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

> I'm working on tab completion for module names. I have some alpha-quality
> code working, so if I hit TAB after typing "import ma" I get this:
>
>
> py> import ma
> macpath      macurl2path  mailbox      mailcap      mangle
> markupbase   math

This is an interesting idea for Idle. Idle currently completes names 
from builtins and, in interactive mode, the current globals. So in the 
situation above, Idle offers 'map' and 'max' in a listbox with all 
builtins (and globals). But after '.', it completes attribute names 
instead and within strings, filenames, starting from the current 
directory of the user process for relative names.

It should not be too hard to recognize 'import' and 'from' instead of or 
in addition to '.' as context markers.  Even just offering stdlib name 
(or current directory names or . imports) would be a help.  Builtin 
names can never be correct in this context.

> For what it's worth, importing "mangle" fails with a SyntaxError. But
> that's okay, I don't expect tab completion to only show *valid*
> modules :-)
>
> Over the next few days I'll make an official announcement, but if anyone
> wants a sneak-peek, check out:
>
> http://code.google.com/p/tabhistory/source/browse/tabhistory.py
>
>
> where I have indenting, code completion, filename completion, and module
> completion all working to some degree or another.
>
> Thanks to everyone for their help.


-- 
Terry Jan Reedy