auto-all 1.1.0

Automatically manage __all__ variable in Python packages.

Automatically manage the __all__ variable in Python packages.

Overview

auto_all can be used for controlling what is made available for import from a package.

Installation

pip install auto-all

Usage

First, import the auto_all functions into your package.

from auto_all import start_all, end_all

If your package has external dependencies then these can be imported and the imported objects can be hidden. In this example we will import pathlib.Path and show that it doesn’t appear on the all list. We’re not actually going to use this import, it’s just for illustration.

from pathlib import Path

Now we can define some internal functions that we want to keep private. We can also do this using underscore prefixes, but auto_all gives us a little more control.

def a_private_function():
    print("This is a private function.")

Now we are ready to start defining public functions, so we use start_all(). We need to pass it the globals dict so that it can see what’s already defined.

start_all(globals())

Now we can define our public functions.

def a_public_function():
    print("This is a public function.")

Finally we use end_all() to finish defining public functions and create the __all__ variable.

end_all(globals())

When we look at the __all__ variable we can see only the public facing function is listed.

>>> print(__all__)
['a_public_function']

Putting this all together, your module should look something like this:

from auto_all import start_all, end_all

from pathlib import Path

def a_private_function():
    print("This is a private function.")

start_all(globals())

def a_public_function():
    print("This is a public function.")

end_all(globals())