Self-identifying functions and macro-ish behavior

[63q2o4i02]

Hi, I was wondering how I may get a python function to know what its
name is without me having to write it manually? For example:

def func1():
<do some stuff1>
print 'func1'
return True

def func2():
<do some stuff2>
print 'func2'
return True

should be more like
def func1():
<do some stuff 1>
print <self-name>
return True

def func2():
<do some stuff 2>
print <self-name>
return True

I imagine this means things like closures which I'm not familiar with
(I'm not a CS person). In this case, each function is part of a class,
so I imagine I can take a dir() of the class if necessary.

This leads into my next related question, which is How do I get some
sort of macro behavior so I don't have to write the same thing over and
over again, but which is also not neatly rolled up into a function,
such as combining the return statements with a printing of <self-name>?
My application has a bunch of functions that must do different things,
then print out their names, and then each call another function before
returning. I'd like to have the last function call and the return in
one statement, because if I forget to manually type it in, things get
messed up.

(ok, I'm writing a parser and I keep track of the call level with a tab
count, which gets printed before any text messages. So each text
message has a tab count in accordance with how far down the parser is.
Each time a grammar rule is entered or returned from, the tab count
goes up or down. If I mess up and forget to call tabsup() or tabsdn(),
the printing gets messed up. There are a lot of simple cheesy
production rules, [I'm doing this largely as an exercise for myself,
which is why I'm doing this parsing manually], so it's error-prone and
tedious to type tabsup() each time I enter a function, and tabsdn()
each time I return from a function, which may be from several different
flow branches.)

Thanks for any help

Michael

 

[Duncan Booth]

def func2():
<do some stuff 2>
print <self-name>
return True

I imagine this means things like closures which I'm not familiar with
(I'm not a CS person). In this case, each function is part of a class,
so I imagine I can take a dir() of the class if necessary.

Use the inspect module to find out what you need.

This leads into my next related question, which is How do I get some
sort of macro behavior so I don't have to write the same thing over and
over again, but which is also not neatly rolled up into a function,
such as combining the return statements with a printing of <self-name>?

By rolling it up neatly in a function?
print inspect.stack()[1][3]
return True
return printcaller()
func1
True

But remember this prints the name under which the function was created, not
the name of the variable in which it is stored:
func1

 

[Iain King]

Hi, I was wondering how I may get a python function to know what its
name is without me having to write it manually? For example:

def func1():
<do some stuff1>
print 'func1'
return True

def func2():
<do some stuff2>
print 'func2'
return True

should be more like
def func1():
<do some stuff 1>
print <self-name>
return True

def func2():
<do some stuff 2>
print <self-name>
return True

I imagine this means things like closures which I'm not familiar with
(I'm not a CS person). In this case, each function is part of a class,
so I imagine I can take a dir() of the class if necessary.

Yeah, I think these are closures (though when I learnt CS we didn't get
taught them). Try this:

def makeFunction(name):
def func():
<do stuff>
print name
return True
return func

func1 = makeFunction('func1')
func2 = makeFunction('func2')

This leads into my next related question, which is How do I get some
sort of macro behavior so I don't have to write the same thing over and
over again, but which is also not neatly rolled up into a function,
such as combining the return statements with a printing of <self-name>?

I think I've answered this too?

Iain

 

[Ben Cartwright]

How do I get some
sort of macro behavior so I don't have to write the same thing over and
over again, but which is also not neatly rolled up into a function,
such as combining the return statements with a printing of <self-name>?

Decorators: http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0318.html

My application has a bunch of functions that must do different things,
then print out their names, and then each call another function before
returning. I'd like to have the last function call and the return in
one statement, because if I forget to manually type it in, things get
messed up.

(ok, I'm writing a parser and I keep track of the call level with a tab
count, which gets printed before any text messages. So each text
message has a tab count in accordance with how far down the parser is.
Each time a grammar rule is entered or returned from, the tab count
goes up or down. If I mess up and forget to call tabsup() or tabsdn(),
the printing gets messed up. There are a lot of simple cheesy
production rules, [I'm doing this largely as an exercise for myself,
which is why I'm doing this parsing manually], so it's error-prone and
tedious to type tabsup() each time I enter a function, and tabsdn()
each time I return from a function, which may be from several different
flow branches.)

def track(func):
"""Decorator to track calls to a set of functions"""
def wrapper(*args, **kwargs):
print " "*track.depth + func.__name__, args, kwargs or ""
track.depth += 1
result = func(*args, **kwargs)
track.depth -= 1
return result
return wrapper
track.depth = 0


# Then to apply the decorator to a function, e.g.:
def f(x):
return True
# Add this line somewhere after the function definition:
f = track(f)

# Alternately, if you're using Python 2.4 or newer, just define f as:
@track
def f(x):
return True


# Test it:
@track
def fact(n):
"""Factorial of n, n! = n*(n-1)*(n-2)*...*3*2"""
assert n >= 0
if n < 2:
return 1
return n * fact(n-1)
@track
def comb(n, r):
"""Choose r items from n w/out repetition, n!/(r!*(n-r)!)"""
assert n >= r
return fact(n) / fact(r) / fact(n-r)
print comb(5, 3)
# Output:
"""
comb (5, 3)
fact (5,)
fact (4,)
fact (3,)
fact (2,)
fact (1,)
fact (3,)
fact (2,)
fact (1,)
fact (2,)
fact (1,)
10
"""

--Ben