[issue31503] Enhance dir(module) to be informed by __all__ by updating module.__dir__

[Cheryl Sabella]

Cheryl Sabella  added the comment:

The OP commented on the PR that a feature close enough to the original request 
was being implemented in PEP562, so I will close this issue with that one as a 
superseder.

--
nosy: +cheryl.sabella
resolution:  -> duplicate
stage:  -> resolved
status: open -> closed
superseder:  -> Implement PEP 562: module __getattr__ and __dir__

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[issue31503] Enhance dir(module) to be informed by __all__ by updating module.__dir__

[R. David Murray]

Changes by R. David Murray :


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nosy: +r.david.murray

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[issue31503] Enhance dir(module) to be informed by __all__ by updating module.__dir__

[Nick Coghlan]

Nick Coghlan added the comment:

Yes, that's one of the goals of the feature: to allow module authors to decide 
if they want tab completion for all attributes, or just the public API.

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[issue31503] Enhance dir(module) to be informed by __all__ by updating module.__dir__

[Serhiy Storchaka]

Serhiy Storchaka added the comment:

This would break tab completion of names not included in __all__.

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nosy: +serhiy.storchaka

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[issue31503] Enhance dir(module) to be informed by __all__ by updating module.__dir__

[Nick Coghlan]

Nick Coghlan added the comment:

As far the implementation goes, since the `__dir__` overload support in the 
`dir()` builtin ignores instance dictionaries, this could be implemented in 
module.__dir__ (or object.__dir__) rather than directly in the builtin.

Alternatively, it could use a different attribute name rather than having 
`__dir__` be a list of strings on instances, and a protocol method on classes.

If we went with a different name, then I think `__public__` would be a 
reasonable option, since the purpose of the attribute is to make it easy to 
programmatically distinguish public attributes from non-public ones 
(independently of the established leading underscore convention, which doesn't 
work well for transitive module references).

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[issue31503] Enhance dir(module) to be informed by __all__ by updating module.__dir__

[Nick Coghlan]

Nick Coghlan added the comment:

While I agree changing the default would be risky from a compatibility 
perspective, I do think it would be helpful to offer a straightforward way to 
filter out transitive imports and other non-public implementation details from 
the result of `dir(module)`, and require folks to use 
`list(vars(module).keys())` if they want a reliably complete listing of all 
global variables defined in a module.

The simplest spelling that comes to mind would be to allow people to write:

__dir__ = __all__

to get ``__all__`` to also affect the result of ``dir()``, permitting module 
authors to make their own determination as to whether they consider "The result 
of dir() includes non-public implementation details" to be covered by any 
backwards compatibility guarantees they might offer.

A less simple, but potentially more flexible, mechanism would be to require 
that to be spelled as:

def __dir__():
return __all__

but I'm not sure the extra flexibility would be useful in any meaningful way 
(especially if one of the options for easier definition of dynamic module level 
properties were eventually adopted).

--
nosy: +ncoghlan

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[issue31503] Enhance dir(module) to be informed by __all__ by updating module.__dir__

[Terry J. Reedy]

Terry J. Reedy added the comment:

Guido on python-ideas: I ave to agree with the other committers who already 
spoke up.

Me: I use dir to see the complete list now presently presented.  The presence 
or absence of  __file__ indicates coded on Python or not.

IDLE module completion start with public items (I believe __all__ or not start 
with _).  Type '_' and the complete list appears.  I think we should reject 
this.

--
nosy: +terry.reedy

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[issue31503] Enhance dir(module) to be informed by __all__ by updating module.__dir__

[Raymond Hettinger]

Raymond Hettinger added the comment:

I think  change this would be risky and could break code that uses dir() to 
actually know what is in a module.

IIRC, this was discussed when __all__ was introduced. I believe it was decided 
that __all__ would affect from-imports and help() but not dir().  This decision 
has been in place for a long time now and I would expect that people (and 
tools) have come to rely on the current behavior.

--
nosy: +brett.cannon, rhettinger

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[issue31503] Enhance dir(module) to be informed by __all__ by updating module.__dir__

[Cody Piersall]

New submission from Cody Piersall:

If a some_module defines __all__, dir(some_module) should only return what is 
in __all__.  This is already a mechanism that Python provides to specify 
module-level APIs.  Currently, dir(some_module) returns 
some_module.__dict__.keys().

The concern with this enhancement is backwards compatibility.  It is 
conceivable that some library's code would be broken with the different return 
value of dir(some_module).  However, it seems unlikely that any code, other 
than tests, depends on the current behavior of dir(some_module).

If __all__ is not defined in some_module, the old behavior is preserved.

--
messages: 302404
nosy: codypiersall
priority: normal
pull_requests: 3631
severity: normal
status: open
title: Enhance dir(module) to be informed by __all__ by updating module.__dir__
type: enhancement
versions: Python 3.7

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