I am working on a framework installer script. The script needs to modify the users AppDelegate file and inject a few lines of code at the beginning or end of the applicationDidFinishLaunching and applicationWillTerminatate methods.
Some options I've thought about:
Parse the source code, and insert lines at correct positions. (Can be difficult to get right and work for everyone's code, just about equivalent to writing a compiler...)
Subclass the AppDelegate file (is this possible?)
Categories??
Which of these is the best option? Any other suggestions?
If you really need to make this something that modifies the AppDelegate with no intervention at all from the developer, and you can modify the xcodeproj and the nib but not the source, there is a way to do it.
First, make sure your classes get compiled in, and an instance of your class gets created in the nib.
Now, here's what you do:
Define a -[AHHackClass applicationDidFinishLaunching] method that does your extra stuff, then calls the [self originalApplicationDidFinishLaunching].
In -[AHHackClass awakeFromNib:], use objc runtime calls to copy the -[AHHackClass applicationDidFinishLaunching] method to the application delegate as -[originalApplicationDidFinishLaunching], then use method swizzling to swap the two methods' implementations.
Do the same to swizzle applicationWillTerminate.
See JRSwizzle for some code that makes the method swizzling much easier, and MethodSwizzling at CocoaDev for some background.
However, there may be a much easier way to do this: Does your extra stuff really need to be called from the app delegate's applicationDidFinishLaunching and applicationWillTerminate methods? Can't you just set up to listen for notifications in your awakeFromNib and handle things there?
And if, for some reason, you can't do that, can you just put a line in the instructions to the developer to call your method from their applicationDidFinishLaunching method?
One solution I am currently considering:
Add NewAppDelegate.m/h file that subclasses AppDelegate.
This subclass, does what I want, and then calls the super methods.
Find/replace AppDelegate with NewAppDelegate.m.h in main.m
This seems pretty simple and robust. Thoughts on this? Will this work for all/most projects?
Related
I would like, given a python module, to monkey patch all functions, classes and attributes it defines. Simply put, I would like to log every interaction a script I do not directly control has with a module I do not directly control. I'm looking for an elegant solution that will not require prior knowledge of either the module or the code using it.
I found several high-level tools that help wrapping, decorating, patching etc... and i've went over the code of some of them, but I cannot find an elegant solution to create a proxy of any given module and automatically proxy it, as seamlessly as possible, except for appending logic to every interaction (record input arguments and return value, for example).
in case someone else is looking for a more complete proxy implementation
Although there are several python proxy solutions similar to those OP is looking for, I could not find a solution that will also proxy classes and arbitrary class objects, as well as automatically proxy functions return values and arguments. Which is what I needed.
I've got some code written for that purpose as part of a full proxying/logging python execution and I may make it into a separate library in the future. If anyone's interested you can find the core of the code in a pull request. Drop me a line if you'd like this as a standalone library.
My code will automatically return wrapper/proxy objects for any proxied object's attributes, functions and classes. The purpose is to log and replay some of the code, so i've got the equivalent "replay" code and some logic to store all proxied objects to a json file.
I have a program that I am writing in Python that does the following:
The user enters the name of a folder. Inside that folder a 8-15 .dat files with different extensions.
The program opens those dat files, enters them into a SQL database and then allows the user to select different changes made to the database. Then the database is exported back to the .dat files. There are about 5-10 different operations that could be performed.
The way that I had planned on designing this was to create a standard class for each group of files. The user would enter the name of the folder and an object with certain attributes (file names, dictionary of files, version of files (there are different versions), etc) would get created. Determining these attributes requires opening a few of these files, reading file names, etc.
Should this action be carried out in the __init__ method? Or should this action be carried our in different instance methods that get called in the __init__ method? Or should these methods be somewhere else, and only be called when the attribute is required elsewhere in the program?
I have already written this program in Java. And I had a constructor that called other methods in the class to set the object's attributes. But I was wondering what standard practice in Python would be.
Well, there is nothing special about good OOP practices in Python. Decomposition of one big method into a bunch of small ones is great idea both in Java and in Python. Among other things small methods gives you an opportunity to write different constructors:
class GroupDescriptor(object):
def __init__(self, file_dictionary):
self.file_dict = file_dictionary
self.load_something(self.file_dict['file_with_some_info'])
#classmethod
def from_filelist(cls, list_of_files):
file_dict = cls.get_file_dict(list_of_files)
return cls(file_dict)
#classmethod
def from_dirpath(cls, directory_path):
files = self.list_dir(directory_path)
return cls.from_filelist(files)
Besides, I don't know how it is in Java but in Python you don't have to worry about exceptions in constructor because they are finely handled. Therefore, it is totally normal to work with such exception-prone things like files.
It looks the action you are describing are initialization, so it'd be perfectly ok to put them into __init__. On the other hand, these actions seem to be pretty expensive, and probably useful in the other part of a program, so you might want to encapsulate them in some separate function.
There's no problem with having a long __init__ method, but I would avoid it simply because its more difficult to test. My approach would be to create smaller methods which are called from __init__. This way you can test them and the initialization separately.
Whether they should be called when needed or run up front really depends on what you need them to do. If they are expensive operations, and are usually not all needed, then maybe its better to only call them when needed. On the other hand, you might want to run them up front so that there is no lag when the attributes are required.
Its not clear from your question whether you actually need a class though. I have no experience with Java, but I understand that everything in it is a class. In python it is perfectly acceptable to just have a function if that's all that's required, and to only create classes when you need instances and other classy things.
The __init__ method is called when the object is instantiated.
Coming from a C++ background I believe its not good to do actual work other than initialization in the constructor.
In Java, this question is easy (if a little tedious) - every class requires its own file. So the number of .java files in a project is the number of classes (not counting anonymous/nested classes).
In Python, though, I can define multiple classes in the same file, and I'm not quite sure how to find the point at which I split things up. It seems wrong to make a file for every class, but it also feels wrong just to leave everything in the same file by default. How do I know where to break a program up?
Remember that in Python, a file is a module that you will most likely import in order to use the classes contained therein. Also remember one of the basic principles of software development "the unit of packaging is the unit of reuse", which basically means:
If classes are most likely used together, or if using one class leads to using another, they belong in a common package.
As I see it, this is really a question about reuse and abstraction. If you have a problem that you can solve in a very general way, so that the resulting code would be useful in many other programs, put it in its own module.
For example: a while ago I wrote a (bad) mpd client. I wanted to make configuration file and option parsing easy, so I created a class that combined ConfigParser and optparse functionality in a way I thought was sensible. It needed a couple of support classes, so I put them all together in a module. I never use the client, but I've reused the configuration module in other projects.
EDIT: Also, a more cynical answer just occurred to me: if you can only solve a problem in a really ugly way, hide the ugliness in a module. :)
In Java ... every class requires its own file.
On the flipside, sometimes a Java file, also, will include enums or subclasses or interfaces, within the main class because they are "closely related."
not counting anonymous/nested classes
Anonymous classes shouldn't be counted, but I think tasteful use of nested classes is a choice much like the one you're asking about Python.
(Occasionally a Java file will have two classes, not nested, which is allowed, but yuck don't do it.)
Python actually gives you the choice to package your code in the way you see fit.
The analogy between Python and Java is that a file i.e., the .py file in Python is
equivalent to a package in Java as in it can contain many related classes and functions.
For good examples, have a look in the Python built-in modules.
Just download the source and check them out, the rule of thumb I follow is
when you have very tightly coupled classes or functions you keep them in a single file
else you break them up.
I'd like something equivalent to
calling method: $METHOD_NAME
args: $ARGS
output: $OUTPUT
to be automatically logged to a file (via the logging module, possibly) for every (user-defined) method call. The best solution I can come up with is to write a decorator that will do this, and then add it to every function. Is there a better way?
Thanks
You could look at the trace module in the standard library, which
allows you to trace program execution, generate annotated statement coverage listings, print caller/callee relationships and list functions executed during a program run. It can be used in another program or from the command line.
You can also log to disk:
import sys
import trace
# create a Trace object, telling it what to ignore, and whether to
# do tracing or line-counting or both.
tracer = trace.Trace(
ignoredirs=[sys.prefix, sys.exec_prefix],
trace=0,
count=1)
# run the new command using the given tracer
tracer.run('main()')
# make a report, placing output in /tmp
r = tracer.results()
r.write_results(show_missing=True, coverdir="/tmp")
One approach that might simplify things a bit would be to use a metaclass to automatically apply your decorator for you. It'd cut down on the typing at the expense of requiring you to delve into the arcane and mysterious world of metaclass programming.
It depends how exactly are you going to use it.
Most generic approach would be to follow stdlib's 'profile' module path and therefore have control over each call, but its somewhat slow.
If you know which modules you need to track before giving them control, I'd go with iterating over all their members and wrapping with tracking decorator. This way tracked code stays clean and it doesn't take too much coding to implement.
A decorator would be a simple approach for a smaller project, however with decorators you have to be careful about passing arguments to make sure that they don't get mangled on their way through. A metaclass would probably be more of the "right" way to do it without having to worry about adding decorators to every new method.
In my application I have to maintain some global application state and global application wide methods like currently connected users, total number of answers, create an application config file etc. There are two options:
Make a separate appstate.py file with global variables with functions over them. It looks fine initially but it seems that I am missing something in clarity of my code.
Create a class AppState with class functions in a appstate.py file, all other modules have been defined by their specific jobs. This looks fine. But now I have to write longer line like appstate.AppState.get_user_list(). Moreover, the methods are not so much related to each other. I can create separate classes but that would be too many classes.
EDIT: If I use classes I will be using classmethods. I don't think there is a need to instantiate the class to an object.
Sounds like the classic conundrum :-).
In Python, there's nothing dirty or shameful about choosing to use a module if that's the best approach. After all, modules, functions, and the like are, in fact, first-class citizens in the language, and offer introspection and properties that many other programming languages offer only by the use of objects.
The way you've described your options, it kinda sounds like you're not too crazy about a class-based approach in this case.
I don't know if you've used the Django framework, but if not, have a look at the documentation on how it handle settings. These are app-wide, they are defined in a module, and they are available globally. The way it parses the options and expose them globally is quite elegant, and you may find such an approach inspiring for your needs.
The second approach is only significantly different from the first approach if you have application state stored in an instance of AppState, in which case your complaint doesn't apply. If you're just storing stuff in a class and using static/class methods, your class is no different than a module, and it would be pythonic to instead actually have it as a module.
The second approach seems better. I'd use the first one only for configuration files or something.
Anyway, to avoid the problem you could always:
from myapp.appstate import AppState
That way you don't have to write the long line anymore.
Why not go with an instance of that class? That way you might even be able later on to have 2 different "sessions" running, depending on what instance you use. It might make it more flexible. Maybe add some method get_appstate() to the module so it instanciates the class once. Later on if you might want several instances you can change this method to eventually take a parameter and use some dictionary etc. to store those instances.
You could also use property decorators btw to make things more readable and have the flexibility of storing it how and where you want it stores.
I agree that it would be more pythonic to use the module approach instead of classmethods.
BTW, I am not such a big fan of having things available globally by some "magic". I'd rather use some explicit call to obtain that information. Then I know where things come from and how to debug it when things fail.
Consider this example:
configuration
|
+-> graphics
| |
| +-> 3D
| |
| +-> 2D
|
+-> sound
The real question is: What is the difference between classes and modules in this hierarchy, as it could be represented by both means?
Classes represent types. If you implement your solution with classes instead of modules, you are able to check a graphics object for it's proper type, but write generic graphics functions.
With classes you can generate parametrized values. This means it is possible to initialize differently the sounds class with a constructor, but it is hard to initialize a module with different parameters.
The point is, that you really something different from the modeling standpoint.
I would go with the classes route as it will better organize your code. Remember that for readability you can do this:
from appstate import AppSate
I'd definitely go for the second option : having already used the first one, I'm now forced to refactor, as my application evolved and have to support more modular constructs, so I now need to handle multiple simulataneous 'configurations'.
The second approach is, IMO, more flexible and future proof. To avoid the longer lines of code, you could use from appstate import AppState instead of just import appstate.