Comments on: Python Call Graphs

By: Prashanth Ellina » Blog Archive » Generating call graphs for understanding and refactoring python code

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 03:06:10 +0000

[...] http://thinktoomuch.net/2007/06/06/python-call-graphs/ [...]

By: Gerald Kaszuba

Gerald Kaszuba — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 13:15:20 +0000

Hi Hugo, I’ve released 0.3.1 to fix that bug

I’ll get to work on your off-line filtering ticket soonish.

By: Hugo

Hugo — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:41:09 +0000

Sweet! The developer *is* responsive! The above one-liner fix has been included in subversion. Submitting another feature request…

By: Hugo

Hugo — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 17:24:35 +0000

Naah, one last comment… timing:

Two rather simple tests that effectively make 28 function calls…

Standard test running time: 0.001s
Test running time with one start_trace call, no tracing: 0.085s
Test running time with two start_trace call, no tracing: 0.085s
Test running time with two start_trace call, tracing 4 function calls: 0.25s
Test running time with two start_trace call, tracing 28 function calls: 1.25s

Scary…

And then I’ve seen another bug… it seems calls to start_trace(reset=False) loses edges from __main__ for all but the first start_trace, i.e. the first one after a reset_trace(). It seems maybe there is something that needs “resetting” even when not resetting.

By: Hugo

Hugo — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 16:54:19 +0000

Of course, generating call graphs hooks into all function calls (using sys.settrace), so this is rather slow. You would want to do it rather selectively, for specific debugging or overview purposes, thus the above is of course overkill.

I’m still looking for the nicest code coverage solution…

OK, enough playing, back to work!