save variable to interactive namespace from python debugger

Question

When I am running inside an interactive session (in my case ipython), and am currently inside a debugger (ipdb or pdb) I would like to

Answer 1

You can accomplish this by getting a reference to the outer interpreter's stack frame, and writing to its frame globals.

Given a sample module with a breakpoint that kicks us into pdb:

my_module.py:

def fun(arg):
    import pdb; pdb.set_trace()
    print arg

Example demonstrating the basic concept:

    >>> import my_module
    >>> my_module.fun(1)
    > /Users/lukasgraf/src/stackoverflow/my_module.py(3)fun()
    -> print arg
    (Pdb) import sys
    (Pdb) sys._getframe(0)
    <frame object at 0x1032ab290>
    # this is the current frame

    (Pdb) sys._getframe(0).f_globals['__name__']
    'my_module'

    # Next outer frame
    (Pdb) sys._getframe(1).f_globals['__name__']
    'pdb'

    # etc...

    # In this example, frame 10 happens to be
    # the one from the outer interpreter
    (Pdb) sys._getframe(10).f_globals['__name__']
    '__main__'

So here's a quick and dirty function that walks up the stack looking for '__name__' with a value of '__main__' in frame globals:

debughelper.py:

import sys

# Be safe and define a maximum of frames we're trying to walk up
MAX_FRAMES = 20

def save_to_interactive(dct):
    n = 0
    # Walk up the stack looking for '__name__'
    # with a value of '__main__' in frame globals
    for n in range(MAX_FRAMES):
        cur_frame = sys._getframe(n)
        name = cur_frame.f_globals.get('__name__')
        if name == '__main__':
            # Yay - we're in the stack frame of the interactive interpreter!
            # So we update its frame globals with the dict containing our data
            cur_frame.f_globals.update(dct)
            break

Usage:

>>> import my_module
>>> my_module.fun('foo')
> /Users/lukasgraf/src/stackoverflow/my_module.py(3)fun()
-> print arg
(Pdb) import debughelper
(Pdb) debughelper.save_to_interactive({'mykey': 42})
(Pdb) c
foo
# We continued PDB, so we're in the outer interpreter again
>>> print mykey
42
>>>