Functions and classes are created during the very execution you're trying to skip so there's no precise way to do what you want.
That said, you can parse the code without executing it, and that will give you some information about defined functions and classes. It will _not_ give you actual function objects; the only way to get those is to execute the code. It will also not catch anything created "on the fly"*, e.g. "exec 'def func(x): pass'"
OK, some more information on what I'm tryng to do would help.
I come from a strong Smalltalk background and in most Smalltalk IDEs is the capability to browse "Implementors" (what classes implement a method with a given name or like a given name) and "Senders" (from what methods is a given method name called)
Given a set of code, not all of which I am familiar with, I wanted to have similar explorative capabilities in understanding the code. grep in Linux does a decent job, but under Windows, the file search (look for a particular string in a py file) does not seem to be too..useful (I don't get back the results I should)
I shied away from just hand-parsing the code because knowing that a file has a string, or even a function with a given name, in it is not hard, knowing that the module has a class that has the function (and knowing the class as well) is more useful
So, in Smalltalk, the way you find out about what's in the system is reflection...you ask the classes what methods they implement (if looking for 'implementors'), you ask the methods for the source and can string search the code (if looking for senders).
Knowing that both modules and classes (and functions) had reality enough to be queried, that was my first line of thought, to load the module and query the module and query the classes in the module, etc... and do various matches against whatever I was looking for.
It worked fine for a file that just defined functions and classes. However, files that had code not contained in classes or functions caused a bit of a problem because loading the module would execute that code and that's not what I wanted.
So therefore, my original question.
The real question, I suppose, is "what is a good technique to find what modules and classes implement or refer to particular names"
Take care, Jay -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
