Python Profiling in Eclipse - python

This questions is semi-based of this one here:
How can you profile a python script?
I thought that this would be a great idea to run on some of my programs. Although profiling from a batch file as explained in the aforementioned answer is possible, I think it would be even better to have this option in Eclipse. At the same time, making my entire program a function and profiling it would mean I have to alter the source code?
How can I configure eclipse such that I have the ability to run the profile command on my existing programs?
Any tips or suggestions are welcomed!

if you follow the common python idiom to make all your code, even the "existing programs", importable as modules, you could do exactly what you describe, without any additional hassle.
here is the specific idiom I am talking about, which turns your program's flow "upside-down" since the __name__ == '__main__' will be placed at the bottom of the file, once all your defs are done:
# program.py file
def foo():
""" analogous to a main(). do something here """
pass
# ... fill in rest of function def's here ...
# here is where the code execution and control flow will
# actually originate for your code, when program.py is
# invoked as a program. a very common Pythonism...
if __name__ == '__main__':
foo()
In my experience, it is quite easy to retrofit any existing scripts you have to follow this form, probably a couple minutes at most.
Since there are other benefits to having you program also a module, you'll find most python scripts out there actually do it this way. One benefit of doing it this way: anything python you write is potentially useable in module form, including cProfile-ing of your foo().

You can always make separate modules that do just profiling specific stuff in your other modules. You can organize modules like these in a separate package. That way you don't change your existing code.

Related

What reasons (if any) exist for prohibiting script import?

An executable script usually looks like this:
import modules
define some CONSTANTS, Classes, functions
if __name__ == "__main__":
really_do_something()
Recently I saw a script using the negated form of the commonn idiom:
if __name__ != "__main__":
print('The executable must not be imported.')
sys.exit(1)
I find it not Pythonic. Why should anybody want to prevent consenting adults to import the file? Are there valid reasons?
I could not find any reasons, except that it is simpler to write this != guard on the top of the script compared to the standard == guard near the bottom of the script.
Even if the answer looks obvious, given the complexity of Python import system I decided to ask just to be sure.
Consider the possibility that the script executes immediate actions. That is, there are commands at "module scope" in the script file:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
with open('/etc/passwd') as pwd:
...
In this case, importing the file will cause those commands to be run. And while it may provide some subroutines or class definitions, it might not.
So putting in a warning saying "you imported this, but you shouldn't, because it won't do what you want" is a friendly thing. It really says "this file isn't set up to be imported. If you want this functionality, call system"
It depends. If the script is just a quick-and-dirty script to do some simply stuff, then I don't see any point in importing it. Just copy&paste what you need into your code and you are done (obviously I'm assuming a compatible open source license).
If the script is part of some library/software, then the best practice would be that each script should be of the form:
import argparse
from somewhere import main
args = <parse-arguments>
main(args)
In other words: it does not contain anything, it just imports stuff, parses the command line arguments and calls the main function. In this case it does not make sense to import this script, because it's empty. You can just perform the imports yourself, removing the argument parsing stuff.
This is where such a guard might be useful. Since it does not make any logical senso to import the script, maybe you can tell the user that instead of importing the script they should simply import the main function.
If, however, the script is complex, imports stuff, defines classes, functions, glues pieces together etc, then yes it does make sense to import it and in this case using a guard similar to the one you provided as an example limits the usefulness of the script.
However note that the script might contain some logic executed when defining the module, in this case importing it might be useless (however the script should be refactored to place such logic in a functin that can be safely imported instead).

Does Sphinx run my code on executing 'make html'?

I inherited a rather large codebase that I want to create HTML documentation for. Since it is written in Python I decided to use Sphinx because the users of the code are accustomed to the design and functionality of the Python documentation that's created with Sphinx.
I used the command sphinx-apidoc to automatically create the .rst files. I imported the module path into sys.path so that Sphinx can find the code.
So far so good. However, when I try to create the HTML using the command make html, there are many tracebacks popping up and some of the examples in the codebase seem to get executed. What can be the reason for that and how can I prevent that from happening?
When using autodoc, Sphinx imports the documented modules, so all module-level code is executed. This happens every time you do "make html". In that sense, Sphinx does "run" your code.
You may have to organize your code a bit differently to make the errors go away (move module-level code to functions). See this question for an example of what can happen.
This is my guess but it may not be the whole story. It's hard to say more without additional information.
def main():
print('hello world')
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
This way your code will not be run.

Two variations of Python's main function

When writing scripts for personal use, I am used to doing this:
def do_something():
# Do something.
if __name__ == '__main__':
do_something()
Or, we can also do this:
def do_something():
# Do something.
do_something() # No if __name__ thingy.
I know the first form is useful when differentiating between importing the script as a module or calling it directly, but otherwise for scripts that will only be executed (and never imported), is there any reason to prefer one over the other?
Even if the script is only meant to be executed, it might sometimes be useful to import it anyway -- in an interactive shell, by documentation generation tools, in unit tests or to perform timings. So routinely using the more general form will never hurt.
The first form is just good practice. One of the immutable laws of writing computer programs is that someone in the distant future (like right after you get assigned to another project or quit or get bored with maintaining the code) will want to use your "always standalone" script, or parts of it, for some other purpose.
If we assume that you are absolutely a rock-star programmer and that every character of your source files is saturated with genius (it is, right?), it makes sense that someone else will get an eyefull of your artwork and be simply knocked to the floor by your brilliance and will want to use it.
Now there's either the choice of making them cut-n-paste your code into a file with their name on the top, which is very un-DRY and makes the contribution of your extraordinary mind get credited to someone else, or you can just add that leetle bit of code and let them import your module and directly use the class or function that made them realize how very, very little they really knew about programming before they encountered it.
Your choice!

Python - Creating a "scripting" system

I'm making a wxpython app that I will compile with the various freezing utility out there to create an executable for multiple platforms.
the program will be a map editer for a tile-based game engine
in this app I want to provide a scripting system so that advanced users can modify the behavior of the program such as modifying project data, exporting the project to a different format ect.
I want the system to work like so.
the user will place the python script they wish to run into a styled textbox and then press a button to execute the script.
I'm good with this so far thats all really simple stuff.
obtain the script from the text-box as a string compile it to a cod object with the inbuilt function compile() then execute the script with an exec statment
script = textbox.text #bla bla store the string
code = compile(script, "script", "exec") #make the code object
eval(code, globals())
the thing is, I want to make sure that this feature can't cause any errors or bugs
say if there is an import statement in the script. will this cause any problems taking into account that the code has been compiled with something like py2exe or py2app?
how do I make sure that the user can't break critical part of the program like modifying part of the GUI while still allowing them to modify the project data (the data is held in global properties in it's own module)? I think that this would mean modifying the globals dict that is passed to the eval function.
how to I make sure that this eval can't cause the program to hang due to a long or infinite loop?
how do I make sure that an error raised inside the user's code can't crash the whole app?
basically, how to I avoid all those problems that can arise when allowing the user to run their own code?
EDIT: Concerning the answers given
I don't feel like any of the answers so far have really answered my questions
yes they have been in part answered but not completely. I'm well aware the it is impossible to completely stop unsafe code. people are just too clever for one man (or even a teem) to think of all the ways to get around a security system and prevent them.
in fact I don't really care if they do. I'm more worried about some one unintentional breaking something they didn't know about. if some one really wanted to they could tear the app to shreds with the scripting functionality, but I couldn't care less. it will be their instance and all the problem they create will be gone when they restart the app unless they have messed with files on the HD.
I want to prevent the problems that arise when the user dose something stupid.
things like IOError's, SystaxErrors, InfiniteLoopErrors ect.
now the part about scope has been answered. I now understand how to define what functions and globals can be accessed from the eval function
but is there a way to make sure that the execution of their code can be stopped if it is taking too long?
a green thread system perhaps? (green because it would be eval to make users worry about thread safety)
also if a users uses an import module statement to load a module from even the default library that isn't used in the rest of the class. could this cause problems with the app being frozen by Py2exe, Py2app, or Freeze? what if they call a modal out side of the standard library? would it be enough that the modal is present in the same directory as the frozen executable?
I would like to get these answers with out creating a new question but I will if I must.
Easy answer: don't.
You can forbid certain keywords (import) and operations, and accesses to certain data structures, but ultimately you're giving your power users quite a bit of power. Since this is for a rich client that runs on the user's machine, a malicious user can crash or even trash the whole app if they really feel like it. But it's their instance to crash. Document it well and tell people what not to touch.
That said, I've done this sort of thing for web apps that execute user input and yes, call eval like this:
eval(code, {"__builtins__":None}, {safe_functions})
where safe_functions is a dictionary containing {"name": func} type pairs of functions you want your users to be able to access. If there's some essential data structure that you're positive your users will never want to poke at, just pop it out of globals before passing them in.
Incidentally, Guido addressed this issue on his blog a while ago. I'll see if I can find it.
Edit: found.
Short Answer: No
Is using eval in Python a bad practice?
Other related posts:
Safety of Python 'eval' For List Deserialization
It is not easy to create a safety net. The details too many and clever hacks are around:
Python: make eval safe
On your design goals:
It seems you are trying to build an extensible system by providing user to modify a lot of behavior and logic.
Easiest option is to ask them to write a script which you can evaluate (eval) during the program run.
How ever, a good design describes , scopes the flexibility and provides scripting mechanism through various design schemes ranging from configuration, plugin to scripting capabilities etc. The scripting apis if well defined can provide more meaningful extensibility. It is safer too.
I'd suggest providing some kind of plug-in API and allowing users to provide plug-ins in the form of text files. You can then import them as modules into their own namespace, catching syntax errors in the process, and call the various functions defined in the plug-in module, again checking for errors. You can provide an API module that defines the functions/classes from your program that the plug-in module has access to. That gives you the freedom to make changes to your application's architecture without breaking plug-ins, since you can just adapt the API module to expose the functionality in the same way.
If you have the option to switch to Tkinter you can use the bundled tcl interpreter to process your script. For that matter you can probably do that with a wxpython app if you don't start the tk event loop; just use the tcl interpreter without creating any windows.
Since the tcl interpreter is a separate thing it should be nearly impossible to crash the python interpreter if you are careful about what commands you expose to tcl. Plus, tcl makes creating DSLs very easy.
Python - the only scripting language with a built-in scripting engine :-).

Why use Python interactive mode?

When I first started reading about Python, all of the tutorials have you use Python's Interactive Mode. It is difficult to save, write long programs, or edit your existing lines (for me at least). It seems like a far more difficult way of writing Python code than opening up a code.py file and running the interpreter on that file.
python code.py
I am coming from a Java background, so I have ingrained expectations of writing and compiling files for programs. I also know that a feature would not be so prominent in Python documentation if it were not somehow useful. So what am I missing?
Let's see:
If you want to know how something works, you can just try it. There is no need to write up a file. I almost always scratch write my programs in the interpreter before coding them. It's not just for things that you don't know how they work in the programming language. I never remember what the correct arguments to range are to create, for example, [-2, -1, 0, 1]. I don't need to. I just have to fire up the interpreter and try stuff until I figure out it is range(-2, 2) (did that just now, actually).
You can use it as a calculator.
Python is a very introspective programming language. If you want to know anything about an object, you can just do dir(object). If you use IPython, you can even do object.<TAB> and it will tab-complete the methods and attributes of that object. That's way faster than looking stuff up in documentation or even in code.
help(anything) for documentation. It's way faster than any web interface.
Again, you have to use IPython (highly recommended), but you can time stuff. %timeit func1() and %timeit func2() is a common idiom to determine what is faster.
How often have you wanted to write a program to use once, and then never again. The fastest way to do this is to just do it in the Python interpreter. Sure, you have to be careful writing loops or functions (they must have the correct syntax the first time), but most stuff is just line by line, and you can play around with it.
Debugging. You don't need to put selective print statements in code to see what variables are when you write it in the interpreter. You just have to type >>> a, and it will show what a is. Nice again to see if you constructed something correctly. The building Python debugger pdb also uses the intrepeter functionality, so you can not only see what a variable is when debugging, but you can also manipulate or even change it without halting debugging.
When people say that Python is faster to develop in, I guarantee that this is a big part of what they are talking about.
Commenters: anything I am forgetting?
REPL Loops (like Python's interactive mode) provide immediate feedback to the programmer. As such, you can rapidly write and test small pieces of code, and assemble those pieces into a larger program.
You're talking about running Python in the console by simply typing "python"? That's just for little tests and for practicing with the language. It's very useful when learning the language and testing out other modules.
Of course any real software project is written in .py files and later executed by the interpreter!
The Python interpreter is a least common denominator: you can run it on multiple platforms, and it acts the same way (modulo platform-specific modules), so it's pretty easy to get a newbie going with.
It's a lot easier to tell a newbie to launch the interpreter and "do this" than to have them open a file, type in some code, save it, make it executable, make sure python is in your PATH, or use a #! line, etc etc. Scrap all of that and just launch the interpreter. For simple examples, you can't beat it. It was never meant for long programs, so if you were using it for that, you probably missed the part of the tutorial that told you "longer scripts go in a file". :)
you use the interactive interpreter to test snippets of your code before you put them into your script.
As already mentioned, the Python interactive interpreter gives a quick and dirty way to test simple Python functions and/or code snippets.
I personally use the Python shell as a very quick way to perform simple Numerical operations (provided by the math module). I have my environment setup, so that the math module is automatically imported whenever I start a Python shell. In fact, its a good way to "market" Python to non-Pythoniasts. Show them how they can use Python as a neat scientific calculator, and for simple mathematical prototyping.
One thing I use interactive mode for that others haven't mentioned: To see if a module is installed. Just fire up Python and try to import the module; if it dies, then your PYTHONPATH is broke or the module is not installed.
This is a great first step for "Hey, it's not working on my machine" or "Which Python did that get installed in, anyway" bugs.
I find the interactive interpreter very, very good for testing quick code, or to show others the Power of Python. Sometimes I use the interpreter as a handy calculator, too. It's amazing what you can do in a very short amount of time.
Aside from the built-in console, I also have to recommend Pyshell. It has auto-completion, and a decent syntax highlighting. You can also edit multiple lines of code at once. Of course, it's not perfect, but certainly better than the default python console.
When coding in Java, you almost always will have the API open in some browser window. However with the python interpreter, you can always import any module that you are thinking about using and check what it offers. You can also test the behavior of new methods that you are unsure of, to eliminate the "Oh! so THAT's how it works" as a source of bugs.
Interactive mode makes it easy to test code snippets before incorporating them into a larger program. If you use IDLE there's syntax highlighting and argument pop-ups to help you out. It's also a quick way of checking that you've figured out how to use a module without having to write a test program.

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