Is there a simple way to get a dictionary of argument names and their default values for a method or function? I came up with one solution, but I feel like Python must have a simpler way.
Python provide a way to get a sequence of argument names and a different way to get a sequence of default argument values. Since default values have to come at the end of an argument list you can match up the values in the default values sequence to the values in the argument list sequence. The following seems to work on both functions and methods:: def func_arg_defaults_dict (func): default_dict = {} if func.func_defaults is not None: da_start = len(func.func_code.co_names) - len(func.func_defaults) for i in range(len(func.func_defaults)): arg_name = func.func_code.co_names[da_start+i] arg_value = func.func_defaults[i] default_dict [arg_name] = arg_value return default_dict def foo (f1, f2, f3, f4='F4', a5='F5'): print f1, f2, f3, f4, f5 class fu: def foo (self, m1, m2, m3, m4='M4', m5='M5'): print m1, m2, m3, m4, m5 f = fu() # test function print func_arg_defaults_dict (foo) # test method print func_arg_defaults_dict (f.foo) Running the script prints this:: {'f4': 'F4', 'f5': 'F5'} {'m5': 'M5', 'm4': 'M4'} Is func_arg_defaults_dict() reasonable? It seems a bit convoluted. I hope there is a more obvious way. Yours, Noah -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list