Here is the first draft of a reply to Python issue #33337 <https://bugs.python.org/issue33337>. This long-dormant issue discusses possible improvements to python tools.
I would appreciate it if you would read the thread in detail, and let me know if the following reply seems on topic and useful. Thanks. ===== Start Post > So if users want to write tools that manipulate Python code, the standard library doesn't provide them with great options. > I suggest the following plan: Hello all, I would like to suggest another possibility. For about three months I have been obsessed with the general problem of manipulating Python source code *easily*. I have long experience with such tools. Along the way I have studied the [asttokens](https://pypi.org/project/asttokens/), [fstringify](https://pypi.org/project/fstringify/), and [black](https://pypi.org/project/black/) projects. Imo, each in its own way illustrates that something significantly better would be welcome. Each project uses complex, idiosyncratic, opaque generators to generate results. What if something much simpler were possible? In late October, 2019 I completed a token-based version of fstringify. I could have stopped there, but then a new thought intruded. What if we could define a **token-order traversal** of parse trees? This new idea sparked an avalanche of new ideas. I couldn't let them go. After three months of literally day and night development this single idea has turned into a major new tool, contained at present in [leoAst.py]( https://github.com/leo-editor/leo-editor/blob/fstrings/leo/core/leoAst.py). The code is simple, general, flexible, and fast, in stark contrast to the tools mentioned above. Leo's [issue #1440](https://github.com/leo-editor/leo-editor/issues/1440) (Unify the ast and token worlds) contains extensive documentation for this project. The first comment contains an overview of the project, the second comment contains a Theory of Operation, and the third contains a History of the Project, with links to the many Engineering Notebook (ENB) post that I wrote along the way. Imo, the TokenOrderGenerator (TOG) and TokenOrderTraverser (TOT) might be candidates for inclusion in the standard library, but first you Python devs will want to decide whether this project is actually something that is even vaguely of interest to you :-) I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Please let me know your thoughts. Edward K. Ream An old man, crazy about computer programming ===== End Post Edward -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "leo-editor" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to leo-editor+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/leo-editor/c70a9009-31d5-4cc4-b8d4-6e3af34d6d9f%40googlegroups.com.
