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-% libparser.tex
-%
-% Copyright 1995 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
-% and Fred L. Drake, Jr. This copyright notice must be distributed on
-% all copies, but this document otherwise may be distributed as part
-% of the Python distribution. No fee may be charged for this document
-% in any representation, either on paper or electronically. This
-% restriction does not affect other elements in a distributed package
-% in any way.
-%
-
-\section{Built-in Module \module{parser}}
-\label{module-parser}
-\bimodindex{parser}
-\index{parsing!Python source code}
-
-The \module{parser} module provides an interface to Python's internal
-parser and byte-code compiler. The primary purpose for this interface
-is to allow Python code to edit the parse tree of a Python expression
-and create executable code from this. This is better than trying
-to parse and modify an arbitrary Python code fragment as a string
-because parsing is performed in a manner identical to the code
-forming the application. It is also faster.
-
-The \module{parser} module was written and documented by Fred
-L. Drake, Jr. (\email{fdrake@acm.org}).%
-\index{Drake, Fred L., Jr.}
-
-There are a few things to note about this module which are important
-to making use of the data structures created. This is not a tutorial
-on editing the parse trees for Python code, but some examples of using
-the \module{parser} module are presented.
-
-Most importantly, a good understanding of the Python grammar processed
-by the internal parser is required. For full information on the
-language syntax, refer to the \emph{Python Language Reference}. The
-parser itself is created from a grammar specification defined in the file
-\file{Grammar/Grammar} in the standard Python distribution. The parse
-trees stored in the AST objects created by this module are the
-actual output from the internal parser when created by the
-\function{expr()} or \function{suite()} functions, described below. The AST
-objects created by \function{sequence2ast()} faithfully simulate those
-structures. Be aware that the values of the sequences which are
-considered ``correct'' will vary from one version of Python to another
-as the formal grammar for the language is revised. However,
-transporting code from one Python version to another as source text
-will always allow correct parse trees to be created in the target
-version, with the only restriction being that migrating to an older
-version of the interpreter will not support more recent language
-constructs. The parse trees are not typically compatible from one
-version to another, whereas source code has always been
-forward-compatible.
-
-Each element of the sequences returned by \function{ast2list()} or
-\function{ast2tuple()} has a simple form. Sequences representing
-non-terminal elements in the grammar always have a length greater than
-one. The first element is an integer which identifies a production in
-the grammar. These integers are given symbolic names in the C header
-file \file{Include/graminit.h} and the Python module
-\module{symbol}. Each additional element of the sequence represents
-a component of the production as recognized in the input string: these
-are always sequences which have the same form as the parent. An
-important aspect of this structure which should be noted is that
-keywords used to identify the parent node type, such as the keyword
-\keyword{if} in an \constant{if_stmt}, are included in the node tree without
-any special treatment. For example, the \keyword{if} keyword is
-represented by the tuple \code{(1, 'if')}, where \code{1} is the
-numeric value associated with all \code{NAME} tokens, including
-variable and function names defined by the user. In an alternate form
-returned when line number information is requested, the same token
-might be represented as \code{(1, 'if', 12)}, where the \code{12}
-represents the line number at which the terminal symbol was found.
-
-Terminal elements are represented in much the same way, but without
-any child elements and the addition of the source text which was
-identified. The example of the \keyword{if} keyword above is
-representative. The various types of terminal symbols are defined in
-the C header file \file{Include/token.h} and the Python module
-\module{token}.
-
-The AST objects are not required to support the functionality of this
-module, but are provided for three purposes: to allow an application
-to amortize the cost of processing complex parse trees, to provide a
-parse tree representation which conserves memory space when compared
-to the Python list or tuple representation, and to ease the creation
-of additional modules in C which manipulate parse trees. A simple
-``wrapper'' class may be created in Python to hide the use of AST
-objects.
-
-The \module{parser} module defines functions for a few distinct
-purposes. The most important purposes are to create AST objects and
-to convert AST objects to other representations such as parse trees
-and compiled code objects, but there are also functions which serve to
-query the type of parse tree represented by an AST object.
-
-
-\subsection{Creating AST Objects}
-\label{Creating ASTs}
-
-AST objects may be created from source code or from a parse tree.
-When creating an AST object from source, different functions are used
-to create the \code{'eval'} and \code{'exec'} forms.
-
-\begin{funcdesc}{expr}{string}
-The \function{expr()} function parses the parameter \code{\var{string}}
-as if it were an input to \samp{compile(\var{string}, 'eval')}. If
-the parse succeeds, an AST object is created to hold the internal
-parse tree representation, otherwise an appropriate exception is
-thrown.
-\end{funcdesc}
-
-\begin{funcdesc}{suite}{string}
-The \function{suite()} function parses the parameter \code{\var{string}}
-as if it were an input to \samp{compile(\var{string}, 'exec')}. If
-the parse succeeds, an AST object is created to hold the internal
-parse tree representation, otherwise an appropriate exception is
-thrown.
-\end{funcdesc}
-
-\begin{funcdesc}{sequence2ast}{sequence}
-This function accepts a parse tree represented as a sequence and
-builds an internal representation if possible. If it can validate
-that the tree conforms to the Python grammar and all nodes are valid
-node types in the host version of Python, an AST object is created
-from the internal representation and returned to the called. If there
-is a problem creating the internal representation, or if the tree
-cannot be validated, a \exception{ParserError} exception is thrown. An AST
-object created this way should not be assumed to compile correctly;
-normal exceptions thrown by compilation may still be initiated when
-the AST object is passed to \function{compileast()}. This may indicate
-problems not related to syntax (such as a \exception{MemoryError}
-exception), but may also be due to constructs such as the result of
-parsing \code{del f(0)}, which escapes the Python parser but is
-checked by the bytecode compiler.
-
-Sequences representing terminal tokens may be represented as either
-two-element lists of the form \code{(1, 'name')} or as three-element
-lists of the form \code{(1, 'name', 56)}. If the third element is
-present, it is assumed to be a valid line number. The line number
-may be specified for any subset of the terminal symbols in the input
-tree.
-\end{funcdesc}
-
-\begin{funcdesc}{tuple2ast}{sequence}
-This is the same function as \function{sequence2ast()}. This entry point
-is maintained for backward compatibility.
-\end{funcdesc}
-
-
-\subsection{Converting AST Objects}
-\label{Converting ASTs}
-
-AST objects, regardless of the input used to create them, may be
-converted to parse trees represented as list- or tuple- trees, or may
-be compiled into executable code objects. Parse trees may be
-extracted with or without line numbering information.
-
-\begin{funcdesc}{ast2list}{ast\optional{, line_info}}
-This function accepts an AST object from the caller in
-\code{\var{ast}} and returns a Python list representing the
-equivelent parse tree. The resulting list representation can be used
-for inspection or the creation of a new parse tree in list form. This
-function does not fail so long as memory is available to build the
-list representation. If the parse tree will only be used for
-inspection, \function{ast2tuple()} should be used instead to reduce memory
-consumption and fragmentation. When the list representation is
-required, this function is significantly faster than retrieving a
-tuple representation and converting that to nested lists.
-
-If \code{\var{line_info}} is true, line number information will be
-included for all terminal tokens as a third element of the list
-representing the token. Note that the line number provided specifies
-the line on which the token \emph{ends}. This information is
-omitted if the flag is false or omitted.
-\end{funcdesc}
-
-\begin{funcdesc}{ast2tuple}{ast\optional{, line_info}}
-This function accepts an AST object from the caller in
-\code{\var{ast}} and returns a Python tuple representing the
-equivelent parse tree. Other than returning a tuple instead of a
-list, this function is identical to \function{ast2list()}.
-
-If \code{\var{line_info}} is true, line number information will be
-included for all terminal tokens as a third element of the list
-representing the token. This information is omitted if the flag is
-false or omitted.
-\end{funcdesc}
-
-\begin{funcdesc}{compileast}{ast\optional{, filename\code{ = '<ast>'}}}
-The Python byte compiler can be invoked on an AST object to produce
-code objects which can be used as part of an \code{exec} statement or
-a call to the built-in \function{eval()}\bifuncindex{eval} function.
-This function provides the interface to the compiler, passing the
-internal parse tree from \code{\var{ast}} to the parser, using the
-source file name specified by the \code{\var{filename}} parameter.
-The default value supplied for \code{\var{filename}} indicates that
-the source was an AST object.
-
-Compiling an AST object may result in exceptions related to
-compilation; an example would be a \exception{SyntaxError} caused by the
-parse tree for \code{del f(0)}: this statement is considered legal
-within the formal grammar for Python but is not a legal language
-construct. The \exception{SyntaxError} raised for this condition is
-actually generated by the Python byte-compiler normally, which is why
-it can be raised at this point by the \module{parser} module. Most
-causes of compilation failure can be diagnosed programmatically by
-inspection of the parse tree.
-\end{funcdesc}
-
-
-\subsection{Queries on AST Objects}
-\label{Querying ASTs}
-
-Two functions are provided which allow an application to determine if
-an AST was created as an expression or a suite. Neither of these
-functions can be used to determine if an AST was created from source
-code via \function{expr()} or \function{suite()} or from a parse tree
-via \function{sequence2ast()}.
-
-\begin{funcdesc}{isexpr}{ast}
-When \code{\var{ast}} represents an \code{'eval'} form, this function
-returns true, otherwise it returns false. This is useful, since code
-objects normally cannot be queried for this information using existing
-built-in functions. Note that the code objects created by
-\function{compileast()} cannot be queried like this either, and are
-identical to those created by the built-in
-\function{compile()}\bifuncindex{compile} function.
-\end{funcdesc}
-
-
-\begin{funcdesc}{issuite}{ast}
-This function mirrors \function{isexpr()} in that it reports whether an
-AST object represents an \code{'exec'} form, commonly known as a
-``suite.'' It is not safe to assume that this function is equivelent
-to \samp{not isexpr(\var{ast})}, as additional syntactic fragments may
-be supported in the future.
-\end{funcdesc}
-
-
-\subsection{Exceptions and Error Handling}
-\label{AST Errors}
-
-The parser module defines a single exception, but may also pass other
-built-in exceptions from other portions of the Python runtime
-environment. See each function for information about the exceptions
-it can raise.
-
-\begin{excdesc}{ParserError}
-Exception raised when a failure occurs within the parser module. This
-is generally produced for validation failures rather than the built in
-\exception{SyntaxError} thrown during normal parsing.
-The exception argument is either a string describing the reason of the
-failure or a tuple containing a sequence causing the failure from a parse
-tree passed to \function{sequence2ast()} and an explanatory string. Calls to
-\function{sequence2ast()} need to be able to handle either type of exception,
-while calls to other functions in the module will only need to be
-aware of the simple string values.
-\end{excdesc}
-
-Note that the functions \function{compileast()}, \function{expr()}, and
-\function{suite()} may throw exceptions which are normally thrown by the
-parsing and compilation process. These include the built in
-exceptions \exception{MemoryError}, \exception{OverflowError},
-\exception{SyntaxError}, and \exception{SystemError}. In these cases, these
-exceptions carry all the meaning normally associated with them. Refer
-to the descriptions of each function for detailed information.
-
-
-\subsection{AST Objects}
-\label{AST Objects}
-
-AST objects returned by \function{expr()}, \function{suite()} and
-\function{sequence2ast()} have no methods of their own.
-
-Ordered and equality comparisons are supported between AST objects.
-Pickling of AST objects (using the \module{pickle} module) is also
-supported.
-
-\begin{datadesc}{ASTType}
-The type of the objects returned by \function{expr()},
-\function{suite()} and \function{sequence2ast()}.
-\end{datadesc}
-
-
-AST objects have the following methods:
-
-
-\begin{methoddesc}[AST]{compile}{\optional{filename}}
-Same as \code{compileast(\var{ast}, \var{filename})}.
-\end{methoddesc}
-
-\begin{methoddesc}[AST]{isexpr}{}
-Same as \code{isexpr(\var{ast})}.
-\end{methoddesc}
-
-\begin{methoddesc}[AST]{issuite}{}
-Same as \code{issuite(\var{ast})}.
-\end{methoddesc}
-
-\begin{methoddesc}[AST]{tolist}{\optional{line_info}}
-Same as \code{ast2list(\var{ast}, \var{line_info})}.
-\end{methoddesc}
-
-\begin{methoddesc}[AST]{totuple}{\optional{line_info}}
-Same as \code{ast2tuple(\var{ast}, \var{line_info})}.
-\end{methoddesc}
-
-
-\subsection{Examples}
-\nodename{AST Examples}
-
-The parser modules allows operations to be performed on the parse tree
-of Python source code before the bytecode is generated, and provides
-for inspection of the parse tree for information gathering purposes.
-Two examples are presented. The simple example demonstrates emulation
-of the \function{compile()}\bifuncindex{compile} built-in function and
-the complex example shows the use of a parse tree for information
-discovery.
-
-\subsubsection{Emulation of \function{compile()}}
-
-While many useful operations may take place between parsing and
-bytecode generation, the simplest operation is to do nothing. For
-this purpose, using the \module{parser} module to produce an
-intermediate data structure is equivelent to the code
-
-\begin{verbatim}
->>> code = compile('a + 5', 'eval')
->>> a = 5
->>> eval(code)
-10
-\end{verbatim}
-
-The equivelent operation using the \module{parser} module is somewhat
-longer, and allows the intermediate internal parse tree to be retained
-as an AST object:
-
-\begin{verbatim}
->>> import parser
->>> ast = parser.expr('a + 5')
->>> code = parser.compileast(ast)
->>> a = 5
->>> eval(code)
-10
-\end{verbatim}
-
-An application which needs both AST and code objects can package this
-code into readily available functions:
-
-\begin{verbatim}
-import parser
-
-def load_suite(source_string):
- ast = parser.suite(source_string)
- code = parser.compileast(ast)
- return ast, code
-
-def load_expression(source_string):
- ast = parser.expr(source_string)
- code = parser.compileast(ast)
- return ast, code
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\subsubsection{Information Discovery}
-
-Some applications benefit from direct access to the parse tree. The
-remainder of this section demonstrates how the parse tree provides
-access to module documentation defined in docstrings without requiring
-that the code being examined be loaded into a running interpreter via
-\keyword{import}. This can be very useful for performing analyses of
-untrusted code.
-
-Generally, the example will demonstrate how the parse tree may be
-traversed to distill interesting information. Two functions and a set
-of classes are developed which provide programmatic access to high
-level function and class definitions provided by a module. The
-classes extract information from the parse tree and provide access to
-the information at a useful semantic level, one function provides a
-simple low-level pattern matching capability, and the other function
-defines a high-level interface to the classes by handling file
-operations on behalf of the caller. All source files mentioned here
-which are not part of the Python installation are located in the
-\file{Demo/parser/} directory of the distribution.
-
-The dynamic nature of Python allows the programmer a great deal of
-flexibility, but most modules need only a limited measure of this when
-defining classes, functions, and methods. In this example, the only
-definitions that will be considered are those which are defined in the
-top level of their context, e.g., a function defined by a \keyword{def}
-statement at column zero of a module, but not a function defined
-within a branch of an \code{if} ... \code{else} construct, though
-there are some good reasons for doing so in some situations. Nesting
-of definitions will be handled by the code developed in the example.
-
-To construct the upper-level extraction methods, we need to know what
-the parse tree structure looks like and how much of it we actually
-need to be concerned about. Python uses a moderately deep parse tree
-so there are a large number of intermediate nodes. It is important to
-read and understand the formal grammar used by Python. This is
-specified in the file \file{Grammar/Grammar} in the distribution.
-Consider the simplest case of interest when searching for docstrings:
-a module consisting of a docstring and nothing else. (See file
-\file{docstring.py}.)
-
-\begin{verbatim}
-"""Some documentation.
-"""
-\end{verbatim}
-
-Using the interpreter to take a look at the parse tree, we find a
-bewildering mass of numbers and parentheses, with the documentation
-buried deep in nested tuples.
-
-\begin{verbatim}
->>> import parser
->>> import pprint
->>> ast = parser.suite(open('docstring.py').read())
->>> tup = parser.ast2tuple(ast)
->>> pprint.pprint(tup)
-(257,
- (264,
- (265,
- (266,
- (267,
- (307,
- (287,
- (288,
- (289,
- (290,
- (292,
- (293,
- (294,
- (295,
- (296,
- (297,
- (298,
- (299,
- (300, (3, '"""Some documentation.\012"""'))))))))))))))))),
- (4, ''))),
- (4, ''),
- (0, ''))
-\end{verbatim}
-
-The numbers at the first element of each node in the tree are the node
-types; they map directly to terminal and non-terminal symbols in the
-grammar. Unfortunately, they are represented as integers in the
-internal representation, and the Python structures generated do not
-change that. However, the \module{symbol} and \module{token} modules
-provide symbolic names for the node types and dictionaries which map
-from the integers to the symbolic names for the node types.
-
-In the output presented above, the outermost tuple contains four
-elements: the integer \code{257} and three additional tuples. Node
-type \code{257} has the symbolic name \constant{file_input}. Each of
-these inner tuples contains an integer as the first element; these
-integers, \code{264}, \code{4}, and \code{0}, represent the node types
-\constant{stmt}, \constant{NEWLINE}, and \constant{ENDMARKER},
-respectively.
-Note that these values may change depending on the version of Python
-you are using; consult \file{symbol.py} and \file{token.py} for
-details of the mapping. It should be fairly clear that the outermost
-node is related primarily to the input source rather than the contents
-of the file, and may be disregarded for the moment. The \constant{stmt}
-node is much more interesting. In particular, all docstrings are
-found in subtrees which are formed exactly as this node is formed,
-with the only difference being the string itself. The association
-between the docstring in a similar tree and the defined entity (class,
-function, or module) which it describes is given by the position of
-the docstring subtree within the tree defining the described
-structure.
-
-By replacing the actual docstring with something to signify a variable
-component of the tree, we allow a simple pattern matching approach to
-check any given subtree for equivelence to the general pattern for
-docstrings. Since the example demonstrates information extraction, we
-can safely require that the tree be in tuple form rather than list
-form, allowing a simple variable representation to be
-\code{['variable_name']}. A simple recursive function can implement
-the pattern matching, returning a boolean and a dictionary of variable
-name to value mappings. (See file \file{example.py}.)
-
-\begin{verbatim}
-from types import ListType, TupleType
-
-def match(pattern, data, vars=None):
- if vars is None:
- vars = {}
- if type(pattern) is ListType:
- vars[pattern[0]] = data
- return 1, vars
- if type(pattern) is not TupleType:
- return (pattern == data), vars
- if len(data) != len(pattern):
- return 0, vars
- for pattern, data in map(None, pattern, data):
- same, vars = match(pattern, data, vars)
- if not same:
- break
- return same, vars
-\end{verbatim}
-
-Using this simple representation for syntactic variables and the symbolic
-node types, the pattern for the candidate docstring subtrees becomes
-fairly readable. (See file \file{example.py}.)
-
-\begin{verbatim}
-import symbol
-import token
-
-DOCSTRING_STMT_PATTERN = (
- symbol.stmt,
- (symbol.simple_stmt,
- (symbol.small_stmt,
- (symbol.expr_stmt,
- (symbol.testlist,
- (symbol.test,
- (symbol.and_test,
- (symbol.not_test,
- (symbol.comparison,
- (symbol.expr,
- (symbol.xor_expr,
- (symbol.and_expr,
- (symbol.shift_expr,
- (symbol.arith_expr,
- (symbol.term,
- (symbol.factor,
- (symbol.power,
- (symbol.atom,
- (token.STRING, ['docstring'])
- )))))))))))))))),
- (token.NEWLINE, '')
- ))
-\end{verbatim}
-
-Using the \function{match()} function with this pattern, extracting the
-module docstring from the parse tree created previously is easy:
-
-\begin{verbatim}
->>> found, vars = match(DOCSTRING_STMT_PATTERN, tup[1])
->>> found
-1
->>> vars
-{'docstring': '"""Some documentation.\012"""'}
-\end{verbatim}
-
-Once specific data can be extracted from a location where it is
-expected, the question of where information can be expected
-needs to be answered. When dealing with docstrings, the answer is
-fairly simple: the docstring is the first \constant{stmt} node in a code
-block (\constant{file_input} or \constant{suite} node types). A module
-consists of a single \constant{file_input} node, and class and function
-definitions each contain exactly one \constant{suite} node. Classes and
-functions are readily identified as subtrees of code block nodes which
-start with \code{(stmt, (compound_stmt, (classdef, ...} or
-\code{(stmt, (compound_stmt, (funcdef, ...}. Note that these subtrees
-cannot be matched by \function{match()} since it does not support multiple
-sibling nodes to match without regard to number. A more elaborate
-matching function could be used to overcome this limitation, but this
-is sufficient for the example.
-
-Given the ability to determine whether a statement might be a
-docstring and extract the actual string from the statement, some work
-needs to be performed to walk the parse tree for an entire module and
-extract information about the names defined in each context of the
-module and associate any docstrings with the names. The code to
-perform this work is not complicated, but bears some explanation.
-
-The public interface to the classes is straightforward and should
-probably be somewhat more flexible. Each ``major'' block of the
-module is described by an object providing several methods for inquiry
-and a constructor which accepts at least the subtree of the complete
-parse tree which it represents. The \class{ModuleInfo} constructor
-accepts an optional \var{name} parameter since it cannot
-otherwise determine the name of the module.
-
-The public classes include \class{ClassInfo}, \class{FunctionInfo},
-and \class{ModuleInfo}. All objects provide the
-methods \method{get_name()}, \method{get_docstring()},
-\method{get_class_names()}, and \method{get_class_info()}. The
-\class{ClassInfo} objects support \method{get_method_names()} and
-\method{get_method_info()} while the other classes provide
-\method{get_function_names()} and \method{get_function_info()}.
-
-Within each of the forms of code block that the public classes
-represent, most of the required information is in the same form and is
-accessed in the same way, with classes having the distinction that
-functions defined at the top level are referred to as ``methods.''
-Since the difference in nomenclature reflects a real semantic
-distinction from functions defined outside of a class, the
-implementation needs to maintain the distinction.
-Hence, most of the functionality of the public classes can be
-implemented in a common base class, \class{SuiteInfoBase}, with the
-accessors for function and method information provided elsewhere.
-Note that there is only one class which represents function and method
-information; this parallels the use of the \keyword{def} statement to
-define both types of elements.
-
-Most of the accessor functions are declared in \class{SuiteInfoBase}
-and do not need to be overriden by subclasses. More importantly, the
-extraction of most information from a parse tree is handled through a
-method called by the \class{SuiteInfoBase} constructor. The example
-code for most of the classes is clear when read alongside the formal
-grammar, but the method which recursively creates new information
-objects requires further examination. Here is the relevant part of
-the \class{SuiteInfoBase} definition from \file{example.py}:
-
-\begin{verbatim}
-class SuiteInfoBase:
- _docstring = ''
- _name = ''
-
- def __init__(self, tree = None):
- self._class_info = {}
- self._function_info = {}
- if tree:
- self._extract_info(tree)
-
- def _extract_info(self, tree):
- # extract docstring
- if len(tree) == 2:
- found, vars = match(DOCSTRING_STMT_PATTERN[1], tree[1])
- else:
- found, vars = match(DOCSTRING_STMT_PATTERN, tree[3])
- if found:
- self._docstring = eval(vars['docstring'])
- # discover inner definitions
- for node in tree[1:]:
- found, vars = match(COMPOUND_STMT_PATTERN, node)
- if found:
- cstmt = vars['compound']
- if cstmt[0] == symbol.funcdef:
- name = cstmt[2][1]
- self._function_info[name] = FunctionInfo(cstmt)
- elif cstmt[0] == symbol.classdef:
- name = cstmt[2][1]
- self._class_info[name] = ClassInfo(cstmt)
-\end{verbatim}
-
-After initializing some internal state, the constructor calls the
-\method{_extract_info()} method. This method performs the bulk of the
-information extraction which takes place in the entire example. The
-extraction has two distinct phases: the location of the docstring for
-the parse tree passed in, and the discovery of additional definitions
-within the code block represented by the parse tree.
-
-The initial \keyword{if} test determines whether the nested suite is of
-the ``short form'' or the ``long form.'' The short form is used when
-the code block is on the same line as the definition of the code
-block, as in
-
-\begin{verbatim}
-def square(x): "Square an argument."; return x ** 2
-\end{verbatim}
-
-while the long form uses an indented block and allows nested
-definitions:
-
-\begin{verbatim}
-def make_power(exp):
- "Make a function that raises an argument to the exponent `exp'."
- def raiser(x, y=exp):
- return x ** y
- return raiser
-\end{verbatim}
-
-When the short form is used, the code block may contain a docstring as
-the first, and possibly only, \constant{small_stmt} element. The
-extraction of such a docstring is slightly different and requires only
-a portion of the complete pattern used in the more common case. As
-implemented, the docstring will only be found if there is only
-one \constant{small_stmt} node in the \constant{simple_stmt} node.
-Since most functions and methods which use the short form do not
-provide a docstring, this may be considered sufficient. The
-extraction of the docstring proceeds using the \function{match()} function
-as described above, and the value of the docstring is stored as an
-attribute of the \class{SuiteInfoBase} object.
-
-After docstring extraction, a simple definition discovery
-algorithm operates on the \constant{stmt} nodes of the
-\constant{suite} node. The special case of the short form is not
-tested; since there are no \constant{stmt} nodes in the short form,
-the algorithm will silently skip the single \constant{simple_stmt}
-node and correctly not discover any nested definitions.
-
-Each statement in the code block is categorized as
-a class definition, function or method definition, or
-something else. For the definition statements, the name of the
-element defined is extracted and a representation object
-appropriate to the definition is created with the defining subtree
-passed as an argument to the constructor. The repesentation objects
-are stored in instance variables and may be retrieved by name using
-the appropriate accessor methods.
-
-The public classes provide any accessors required which are more
-specific than those provided by the \class{SuiteInfoBase} class, but
-the real extraction algorithm remains common to all forms of code
-blocks. A high-level function can be used to extract the complete set
-of information from a source file. (See file \file{example.py}.)
-
-\begin{verbatim}
-def get_docs(fileName):
- source = open(fileName).read()
- import os
- basename = os.path.basename(os.path.splitext(fileName)[0])
- import parser
- ast = parser.suite(source)
- tup = parser.ast2tuple(ast)
- return ModuleInfo(tup, basename)
-\end{verbatim}
-
-This provides an easy-to-use interface to the documentation of a
-module. If information is required which is not extracted by the code
-of this example, the code may be extended at clearly defined points to
-provide additional capabilities.
-
-\begin{seealso}
-
-\seemodule{symbol}{useful constants representing internal nodes of the
-parse tree}
-
-\seemodule{token}{useful constants representing leaf nodes of the
-parse tree and functions for testing node values}
-
-\end{seealso}