[Baypiggies] black magic question

[Mark C. Brighton]

Hello,

I have a problem that probably has a simple answer, but it's been vexing me.  

I'm looking for a way to log an object's method calls and their results. Right now each method has a section of boiler-plate code that logs the method name, arguments, and results.  It's cluttered and hard to maintain.  It seems like a prime place to use a metaclass or decorator.  The Python Cookbook (great book btw) has a recipe for this in section 20.6 (and using metaclasses in 20.7).  I've tried it, and it works, except....  the object "looses" the method's argument information.  For most objects, this isn't a problem, but we use this object interactively from the interpreter.  If I were to make the tool tips unhelpful, I would immediately get complaints from my coworkers; and to be honest, I wouldn't like it either.  

So is there a way to use decorators (or the like) to add functionality around a class without obscuring its signature?  

thanks in advance,

Mark Brighton