Question

Would the most efficient way-and I know it’s not very efficient, but I honestly can’t find any better way-to manipulate a Python (.py) file, to add/subtract/append code, be to use the basic file I/O module included in Python?

For an example:

obj = open('Codemanipulationtest.py', 'w+')
obj.write("print 'This shows you can do basic I/O?'")
obj.close()

Will manipulate a file I have, named “codemanipulationtest.py”, and add to it a print statement. Is this something that can be worked upon or are there any easier or more safe/efficient methods for manipulating/creating new python code?

I’ve read over this: Parse a .py file, read the AST, modify it, then write back the modified source code

And honestly it seems like the I/O method is easier. I am kind of newbish to Python so I may just be acting stupid…..thanks in advance for any responses.

Edit

The point of it all was simply to play around with the effects playing around with the code. I was thinking of hooking up whatever I end up using to some sort of learning algorithm and seeing how well it could generate little bits of code at a time, and seeing where it could go from there….

Answer 1

To go about with generating the code I would break it out into various classes, IF class, FOR class, and so on. Then you can use the output wherein each class has a to_str() method that you can call in turn.

statements = [ ... ]

obj = open( "some.py", "w+" )

for s in statements:
    obj.write( s.to_str() )

obj.close()

This way you can extend your project easily and it will be more understandable and flexible. And, it keeps with the use of the simple write method that you wanted.

Depending on the learning algorithm this break out of the various classes can lead quite well into a sort of pseudo genetic algorithm for code. You can encode the genome as a sequence of statements and then you just have to find a way to go about passing parameters to each statement if they are required and such.