Question

I’m working on a huge Python module, like this:

import millions, and, billions, of, modules...

...lots of functions...

def myfunc
   ...with huge body

...more functions

I’d like to extract myfunc to its own module. However, tracking down all the imports I need is actually pretty tedious. Is there a way to do this automatically using Eclipse? I’m using Eclipse 3.7.0 with Aptana Studio plugin (and hence PyDev). There’s an “extract method” refactoring tool, but it doesn’t do this.

Answer 1

Ok, maybe this is easier than I thought:

1. Copy function definition to a new file
2. Copy the entire imports section to that new file
3. Unused imports are shown with a wiggly yellow line. Delete them.
4. Delete the function definition from the original file, replacing it with a call reference.
5. Now you have unused imports here too, so delete those as per 3.

It’s not automatic, but it’s relatively straightforward and painless.