function_trace 0.2.2

Hierarchical trace of function/method call arguments and return values

Function_trace is a simple debugging library, inspired by similar libs in Common Lisp and Clojure. It captures function call arguments and return values, and prints them in a nested fashion so you can easily see which function is being called by which other function, what arguments it was called with, and what its return value was.

Usage

Trace blocks of code with the trace_on context manager. It accepts one positional argument, a list of modules and classes to be traced. When a class is traced, that includes all the methods defined in that class, but not inherited methods. When a module is traced, that includes all the functions in that module, but does not include any class methods defined in that module (you must specify the class separately).

By default, the trace output is printed to stdout. You can modify this behavior by replacing function_trace.tracer with a function that does whatever you like with the trace. The tracer function should have the signature (f, *args, **kwargs) which is the function to trace, and the arguments to call the function with. It should call the function with the args at some point. Note it is preferable to catch any exceptions thrown by f, log them and re-raise the exception.

Options

• include_hidden if set to True, also trace functions whose name starts with _. Note, the __repr__ function will never be traced.

Examples

from function_trace import trace_on

with trace_on([Class1, module1, Class2, module2], include_hidden=True):
    module1.function1("arg1", "arg2", option=True)
    x = new Class1()
    x.method1(arg1, arg2)

Output

- module1.function1("arg1", "arg2", option=True)
|    - module1.function2("arg2")
|    |    - module1.check_thing()
|    |    -> True
|    -> "myresult"
-> "myresult"
- Class1.x(<Class1 object at 0xdeadbeef>, "arg1val", "arg2val")
|    - module2.function1("arg2val")
|    -> "foo"
|    - Class2.y(<Class2 object at 0xabcd0001>, "arg1val")
|    -> BadInputException("You can't call y with 'arg1val'!")
-> BadInputException("You can't call y with 'arg1val'!")

• Methods will show the first argument self. By default, arguments and return values are printed using repr, so if you want to see something more informative than <Class1 object at 0xdeadbeef>, you can define __repr__ on Class1 to print whatever you like (probably the values of various fields of that object).

• By default, exceptions that are raised by a function are printed as its return value. This makes it possible to see an exception propagating down the stack. It is currently not possible to distinguish between a function call that returns an exception object, and one that raises that exception object (but functions that intentionally return Exceptions are rare anyway).