Add Object Explorer for exploring an object's properties

[spyder-bot]

From [email protected] on 2011-02-11T18:15:26Z

Please add a tree-view of the currently-available objects and their properties.
e.g. given a class A with properties b and c, and an instance of class A called a, there would be a collapsible entry:

variable type value
a A <whatever repr(a) gives>

which would expand to:

variable type value
a A <whatever repr(a) gives>
+-b str hello
+-c str world

(a good example is in wxPython's PyCrust shell - the Namespace explorer)

Original issue: http://code.google.com/p/spyderlib/issues/detail?id=558

[spyder-bot]

From ccordoba12 on 2011-02-16T11:56:34Z

This idea sounds very interesting. Although I understand you perfectly well, could you put a PyCrust screenshot depicting this feature? I've tried to find it but it seems like an old project.

Thanks for your interest in Spyder,
Carlos

Labels: -Type-Defect Type-Enhancement

[spyder-bot]

From [email protected] on 2011-02-17T21:46:36Z

PyCrust comes as part of wxPython. In the namespace explorer it starts with a node for locals, which can be expanded to show the current set of local variables. From there you can expand certain variables to examine their properties and methods. When you select a variable (or property or method) it displays some information about that object (e.g. docstring, repr(...), str(...)).
To reduce clutter, I would suggest to limit what is displayed to "public" (non-underscore) variables and properties.

Attachment: pycrust_namespace.png

[spyder-bot]

From pierre.raybaut on 2011-02-28T06:44:20Z

issue #291 has been merged into this issue.

[spyder-bot]

From [email protected] on 2012-01-04T11:44:29Z

Any update on that feature request?

[spyder-bot]

From pierre.raybaut on 2012-01-07T04:40:07Z

Nothing new except for revision 6a1d3e40eed8 .

[spyder-bot]

From pierre.raybaut on 2012-03-18T14:11:55Z

Labels: -Type-Enhancement Type-Defect

[spyder-bot]

From pierre.raybaut on 2012-03-18T14:12:14Z

Labels: -Type-Defect Type-Enh

[spyder-bot]

From [email protected] on 2013-06-30T11:58:12Z

I made my own tree view PyQt script that does this. It's a standalone script, but feel free to modify it for use as a plugin in Spyder. The code is slightly messy since I was learning PyQt along the way. Here is the description:

Features:
represents objects in a namespace as a tree with subitems for:
-user created classes/instances with dict
-mapping-like objects (e.g. dicts, pandas objects)
-sequence-like objects (e.g. lists, numpy arrays)
copy names of objects to clipboard
natural sorting of tree
circular references detection
note: uncomment app.exec_() and def closeEvent for a proper application, but blocks terminal
Todo:
auto refresh
app.exec_() without blocking the terminal

Attachment: objectexplorer.py objectexplorer_ui.ui objectexplorer_ui.py Screenshot.png

[spyder-bot]

From ccordoba12 on 2013-07-04T10:37:40Z

Thanks a lot for sharing your work with us!! That's the spirit of open source!

I don't have time to review your work right now (because we are busy with our Python 3 migration) but I'll do it in a month or so, after we release 2.3.

Thanks again

Labels: MS-v2.4 Cat-VariableExplorer

[spyder-bot]

From [email protected] on 2013-07-11T19:14:20Z

Glad to help! I attached an updated version of the main script that fixes a few things.

Attachment: objectexplorer.py

[spyder-bot]

From ccordoba12 on 2014-11-18T18:03:19Z

issue #1887 has been merged into this issue.

[spyder-bot]

From [email protected] on 2015-02-03T07:11:17Z

[email protected] how do I use this plugin for a project in Spyder? This is a really nice feature you have made.

Ts

[spyder-bot]

From ccordoba12 on 2015-02-03T12:19:13Z

I hope to have time integrate climan99 work in our next major release. I think it shouldn't be that hard to do :-)

[simongis]

Have jumped into learning python with Conda install and using Spyder as my IDE. Loving it so far (former PyScripter user). Just been learning more about classes and was bit stumped why I could not see them in variable explorer. I know GitHub does not allow for voting on issues, but just raising my hand up on this one. Keep up the great work!

[franktoffel]

Has been this feature implemented already?

I understand that this is something similar to what this module does: https://github.com/titusjan/objbrowser

[goanpeca]

We are working on this, but will not be available for 3.0, more like 3.2 version.

Very cool project you linked. Could be useful, @ccordoba12 ?

[ccordoba12]

Yes, I'm very much in favor of adding something like this to visualize all types we don't support natively (e.g. functions and classes).

Unfortunately @titusjan code is GPL3. @titusjan, could you reconsider to re-license it as MIT?

[ccordoba12]

Another (important) thing to notice is that to expand the Variable Explorer to handle arbitrary objects, we need to use a serialization library that can handles all Python objects (pickle fails a bit short at that). And the most robust one that does this is dill.

Another really cool thing about dill is that it allows to save a full interpreter session to disk. So by using it we'll also be able to save the state of our consoles and restore it at will (pretty much as RStudio does it for R ;-)

[titusjan]

In principle I wouldn't mind re-licensing objbrowser under MIT. However, the new version (i.e. the current development branch) works with both PyQt and PySide. Since PyQt is GPL, it is my understanding that it makes objbrowser incompatible with the MIT license.

Perhaps I could release it under a dual license of some sorts. Any thoughts on this?

[titusjan]

Made an MIT release: objbrowser v1.1.0
Use whatever you like from it. Let me know if you have questions or remarks.

[franktoffel]

Great! Thanks @titusjan

[ccordoba12]

Yep, thanks a lot!

[goanpeca]

@rlaverde could you work on this?

We can set up a meeting to go through the current architecture of the varexp and the needs

[ccordoba12]

If the plan is to work on the Variable Explorer API, we should move this to 4.0. However, that's not needed to add a general objects browser (at least for Python) in 3.0.

[tpanza]

Hi, just curious on the latest status on this. May I ask why this is "not sorted" and apparently no longer scheduled for inclusion in Spyder 4.0?

[ccordoba12]

It was a mistake.

[ccordoba12]

@dalthviz, please work on this one. Move everything we need from the objbrowser project to a new module called plugins/variableexplorer/widgets/objecteditor2/, add some tests for it and make it work with arbitrary objects (i.e. not collections, arrays or dataframes). Thanks!