Question

Given the python function:

def MyPythonMethod(value1, value2):
    # defining some variables 
    a = 4
    myValue = 15.65
    listValues = [4, 67, 83, -23]

    # doing some operation on the list
    listValues[0] = listValues[1]       

    # looping through the values
    for i in listValues:
        print i 

How can I extract the names and types of all the variables in method MyPythonMethod?

Ideally, I’d like to get all variable names and their types given a method name. for example, the output for method MyPythonMethod will look like this:

varNames = ["a", "myValue", "listValues", "i"]

varTypes = ["int", "float", "list", "float"]

Any ideas?

Answer 1

1 Variables don’t have a type in python. Objects have a type, and variables point to objects.

[2] you can use the inspect module to get info about the internals of your function.
Read the docs — they will tell you what is available for inspection.
MyPythonMethod.func_code.co_varnames will give you the local variable names, for example.
( And note that MyPythonMethod, as defined, is actually a function, not a method. )

[3] But even when you get the names of the local variables, the aren’t bound to any objects
except while the function is executing. The value 4 is bound to local var ‘a’ in the function — before and after the function is called, there is no ‘a’ and it’s not bound to anything.

[4] If you run the function in the debugger, you can halt the execution at any point and inspect the variables and objects created in the function.

[5] If the function raises an exception, you can catch the exception and get access to some of the state of the function at the time of the exception.