Python PDB

Last month I attended PyMunich conference and in this blog post I want to highlight a talk by Philip Bauer (“Debug like a pro. How to become a better programmer through pdb-driven development“).

Basic commands for pdb that Philip highlighted:

  •  l[ist] (list source code of current file)
  • n[ext] (continue execution until next line)
  • s[tep] (execute the current line, stop at the first possible occasion)
  • r[eturn] (continue execution until the current function returns)
  • c[ontinue] (continue execution, only stop when a breakpoint is encountered)
  • w[here] (show stack trace, recent frame at bottom)
  • u[p] (move up the stack)
  • d[own] (move down the stack)
  • b[reakpoint] (set a new breakpoint. `tbreak` for temporary break points)
  • a[rgs] (print the argument list of the current function)

`ipdb`/`pdbpp` also have long list method (`ll`) which displays the whole function you are in.

Other python debugging tricks you should know about are:

  • use ?for getting additional information lib/class/function/… (e.g. os?)
  • use ??for displaying the source code of the lib/class/function you want to inspect (e.g. os.path.join??)
  • pp(Pretty-print) is already in pdb so you should always use it
  • pp locals()will pretty print local variables

One of the best tricks is the `help` function which accepts object and returns generated help page for the object. !help(obj.__class__)command will generate help page which will contain all the methods including class methods and static methods with docstrings, method resolution order, data descriptors, attributes, data and other attributes inherited and much more.

Full article about PyMunich 2016 is located here: link.

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