In debugging my code, I want to use a list comprehension. However, it seems I cannot evaluate a list comprehension from the debugger when I'm inside a function.
I am using Python 3.4.
Script contents:
$ cat test.py
#!/usr/bin/python
def foo():
x = [1, 2, 3, 3, 4]
print(x)
foo()
Interactive debugging:
$ python3 -mpdb test.py
> /tmp/test.py(3)<module>()
-> def foo():
(Pdb) step
> /tmp/test.py(8)<module>()
-> foo()
(Pdb)
--Call--
> /tmp/test.py(3)foo()
-> def foo():
(Pdb)
> /tmp/test.py(4)foo()
-> x = [1, 2, 3, 3, 4]
(Pdb)
> /tmp/test.py(6)foo()
-> print(x)
(Pdb) p [x for _ in range(1)]
*** NameError: name 'x' is not defined
(Pdb) p x
[1, 2, 3, 3, 4]
Why is x
unknown to the list comprehension? How could I evaluate a list comprehension from the debugger, or achieve an equivalent behaviour? Is this a bug, or is it some sort of fundamental limitation to the debugger?
In Python 3, you have to use the interact
command in pdb before you can access any non-global variables due to a change in the way comprehensions are implemented.
>>> def foo(): [][0]
...
>>> foo()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "<stdin>", line 1, in foo
IndexError: list index out of range
>>> import pdb;pdb.pm()
> <stdin>(1)foo()
(Pdb) x = 4
(Pdb) [x for _ in range(2)]
*** NameError: name 'x' is not defined
(Pdb) interact
*interactive*
>>> [x for _ in range(2)]
[4, 4]
>>>
pdb
seems to be running the code with:
eval(compiled_code, globals(), locals())
(or maybe even just eval(string, globals(), locals())
).
Unfortunately, on compilation Python doesn't know of the local variables. This doesn't matter normally:
import dis
dis.dis(compile("x", "", "eval"))
#>>> 1 0 LOAD_NAME 0 (x)
#>>> 3 RETURN_VALUE
but when another scope is introduced, such as with a list comprehension of lambda
, this compiles badly:
dis.dis(compile("(lambda: x)()", "", "eval"))
#>>> 1 0 LOAD_CONST 0 (<code object <lambda> at 0x7fac20708d20, file "", line 1>)
#>>> 3 LOAD_CONST 1 ('<lambda>')
#>>> 6 MAKE_FUNCTION 0
#>>> 9 CALL_FUNCTION 0 (0 positional, 0 keyword pair)
#>>> 12 RETURN_VALUE
# The code of the internal lambda
dis.dis(compile("(lambda: x)()", "", "eval").co_consts[0])
#>>> 1 0 LOAD_GLOBAL 0 (x)
#>>> 3 RETURN_VALUE
Note how that's a LOAD_GLOBAL
where x
is in the local scope.
Here's a totally stupid hack to get around it:
(Pdb) eval("(lambda: x)()", vars())
[1, 2, 3, 3, 4]