Python : Exploring Objects similar to PowerShell

To be fair Python's REPL mode allows you to explore objects pretty easy. But since PowerShell has been my first language, I often tend to crib for similar experience.

P.S. - I do know that PowerShell language specs picked up quite many things from Python. Also, Python is my goto language on Linux platform as well.

So back to cribbing, I tend to miss most the exploring aspects of  PowerShell e.g. Get-Member and Format-* cmdlets until one day I sat down and wrote few functions in Python to give me a similar experience.

Getting Members

Enter GetMember.py, not a replacement for dir() in Python but this is more useful to me coming from PowerShell background.

	import inspect
	def GetMember(object, width=100):
	print("TypeName: {}\n".format(repr(object)))
	print("{0:<40} {1:<60} {2:<100}".format('Name', 'MemberType', 'Signature'))
	print("{0:<40} {1:<60} {2:<100}".format('----', '----------', '---------'))
	members = inspect.getmembers(object)
	for member in members:
	name = str(member[0])
	membertype = type(member[1])
	if hasattr(member[-1], '__name__') and callable(member[-1]):
	try:
	signature = str(inspect.Signature.from_callable(member[-1]))
	except:
	signature = 'None'
	else:
	signature = 'None'
	print("{0:<40} {1:<60} {2:<100}".format(name[:40], str(membertype)[:60], signature[:width]))

view raw GetMember.py hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Below is how I use it from my REPL, see that my function uses a package called Inspect and I use the GetMember function to inspect that itself :D

Format Object properties

Another thing which I miss most from the PowerShell world is that you can just pipe objects into Format-* cmdlet.

FormatList.py, not a hotshot function but gets work done.

	def FormatList(object, width=100):
	keys = [i for i in dir(object) if ( not str(i).startswith('__'))]
	if keys:
	for key in keys:
	print("{0:<40} : {1:<80}".format(key, (str(getattr(object, key)))[:width]))

view raw FormatList.py hosted with ❤ by GitHub

See the usage below, makes life easy when you want to see the members (method and properties) on an object.