python refresh/reload

Question

This is a very basic question - but I haven\'t been able to find an answer by searching online.

I am using python to control ArcGIS, and I have a simple python scrip

Answer 1

I'm not really sure that is what you mean, so don't hesitate to correct me. You are importing a module - let's call it mymodule.py - in your program, but when you change its contents, you don't see the difference?

Python will not look for changes in mymodule.py each time it is used, it will load it a first time, compile it to bytecode and keep it internally. It will normally also save the compiled bytecode (mymodule.pyc). The next time you will start your program, it will check if mymodule.py is more recent than mymodule.pyc, and recompile it if necessary.

If you need to, you can reload the module explicitly:

import mymodule

[... some code ...]

if userAskedForRefresh:
    reload(mymodule)

Of course, it is more complicated than that and you may have side-effects depending on what you do with your program regarding the other module, for example if variables depends on classes defined in mymodule.

Alternatively, you could use the execfile function (or exec(), eval(), compile())