python-ta 0.1

Code checking tool for teaching Python

PyTA is a Python program which uses static code analysis to help students find and fix common coding errors in introductory Python courses. Python already has great static analysis tools like pep8 and pylint, but these tools do not necessarily have the most beginner-friendly format. PyTA has two central goals:

1. Statically identify common coding errors by using existing linting tools and building custom linters (e.g., as pylint checkers).

2. Present beautiful, intuitive messages to students that are both helpful for fixing errors, and good preparation for the terser messages they will see in their careers.

This is a new project I hope to start in the Summer of 2016, and will likely take the form of a wrapper around pylint (with custom checkers) that operates directly on Python modules, as well as a website with some supplementary material going into further detail for the emitted errors.

Requirements

PyTA supports Python 3 and requires pylint and a few other Python libraries. If you have Python and pip (a Python package manager, bundled with Python 3.4+), run the following command to install them:

> pip install pylint colorama funcparserlib

Demo

You can currently see a proof of concept in this repository. Clone it, and then run python in this directory (PyTA is primarily meant to be included as a library). In the Python interpreter, try running:

>>> import pyta
>>> pyta.check_all('examples.forbidden_import_example')
[Some output should be shown]
>>> pyta.doc('E9999')

Tests

We have a test suite which checks every example file to see if PyTA actually picks up on the error the file is supposed to illustrate.

To run the tests, enter python tests/test_examples.py in the terminal.