How do I look inside a Python object?

Question

I\'m starting to code in various projects using Python (including Django web development and Panda3D game development).

To help me understand what\'s going on, I wo

Answer 1

Others have already mentioned the dir() built-in which sounds like what you're looking for, but here's another good tip. Many libraries -- including most of the standard library -- are distributed in source form. Meaning you can pretty easily read the source code directly. The trick is in finding it; for example:

>>> import string
>>> string.__file__
'/usr/lib/python2.5/string.pyc'

The *.pyc file is compiled, so remove the trailing 'c' and open up the uncompiled *.py file in your favorite editor or file viewer:

/usr/lib/python2.5/string.py

I've found this incredibly useful for discovering things like which exceptions are raised from a given API. This kind of detail is rarely well-documented in the Python world.