Pylint Print Checker

A Pylint plugin for checking for use of the print() function in Python.

Installation

The best way to install Pylint Print is to use pip as follows:

pip install pylint-print

Example Usage

This simple program is saved as hello_world.py:

"""
a module to demonstrate the pylint-print checker
"""

if __name__ == "__main__":
    print("Hello, World!")

In order to use pylint-print, this must be included as a plug in there are two main ways to do this. The first method is to use the command line options:

pylint hello_world.py --load-plugins=pylint_print

This will provide a response that should look like this:

************* Module hello_world
hello_world.py:6:4: W8201: Logging should be used instead of the print() function. (print-function)

-----------------------------------
Your code has been rated at 5.00/10

The other main way to use pylint is with a configuration file. Refer to the Pylint Documentation for more details about the configuration files and how to set one up.

The configuration file should have a load-plugin key which will need the pylint_print added as follows:

# List of plugins (as comma separated values of python module names) to load,
# usually to register additional checkers.
load-plugins=pylint_print

Once the plugin has been added to the configuration file it is no long necessary to add it to the pylint execution, for example:

pylint hello_world.py

Why warn about print usage

print statements are often the first thing a developer learns, they are useful to add to your code when developing to understand how it works and debug problems.

However, as a project grows they can become problematic, it is much better to use a logger that allows:

• Log messages to be filtered by type or module
• Log messages can be redirected to other places rather than the console e.g. a file

For these reasons some projects may want to restrict the usage of print in their coding rules and make a check as part of the linting checks to avoid needing manual reviews

Further Information

View on PyPi