Accessing Python source code and bytecode comes useful in many cases. You can learn to do it easily. Find out more about how to do it here.
Display the bytecode of a function
The Python interpreter compiles code to bytecode before executing it on the Python’s virtual machine (see also What is python bytecode?.
Here’s how to view the bytecode of a Python function
import dis
def fib(n):
if n <= 2: return 1
return fib(n-1) + fib(n-2)
Display the disassembled bytecode of the function. dis.dis(fib)
The function dis.dis in the dis module will return a decompiled bytecode of the function passed to it.
Display the source code of an object
Objects that are not built-in
To print the source code of a Python object use inspect. Note that this won’t work for built-in objects nor for objects defined interactively. For these you will need other methods explained later.
Here’s how to print the source code of the method randint from the random module:
import random
import inspect
print(inspect.getsource(random.randint))
Output:
def randint(self, a, b):
"""Return random integer in range [a, b], including both end points.
"""
#
return self.randrange(a, b+1)
To just print the documentation string
print(inspect.getdoc(random.randint))
Output:
Return random integer in range [a, b], including both end points.
Print full path of the file where the method random.randint is defined:
print(inspect.getfile(random.randint))
c:\Python35\lib\random.py
print(random.randint.code.co_filename) # equivalent to the above
c:\Python35\lib\random.py
Objects defined interactively
If an object is defined interactively inspect cannot provide the source code but you can use dill.source.getsource instead
define a new function in the interactive shell def add(a, b):return a + b print(add.code.co_filename) # Output:
import dill
print dill.source.getsource(add)
def add(a, b): return a + b
Built-in objects
The source code for Python’s built-in functions is written in c and can only be accessed by looking at the Python’s source code (hosted on Mercurial or downloadable from https://www.python.org/downloads/source/).
print(inspect.getsource(sorted)) # raises a TypeError type(sorted) #
Accessing Python source code: Exploring the code object of a function
CPython allows access to the code object for a function object.
The __code__object contains the raw bytecode (co_code) of the function as well as other information such as constants and variable names.
def fib(n):
if n <= 2: return 1
return fib(n-1) + fib(n-2)
dir(fib.code)
def fib(n):
if n <= 2: return 1
return fib(n-1) + fib(n-2)
dir(fib.code)