Pyfind is a command line tool for searching Python source code across multiple projects or packages. I use it when I'm writing code to accomplish some task and want to quickly see examples of how I've accomplished that same task before. Also has options for searching the Python standard library or installed packages.
The default behavior is to search all local project folders defined in a projects.txt file in the pyfind home folder. For example, here's a truncated screenshot of a search for use of the json.dumps method across my projects, which I might do to remind myself of its syntax:
Each project folder where a hit was found is printed in green, the source files are printed in white, and each hit is printed in cyan with its line number.
Any file type(s) can be searched, and the default is to search .py source files and .ipynb notebook files. For notebooks, search hits show the cell number instead of line number:
Pyfind requires Python 3.7 or above, and it uses the Click CLI library. I like to install it as editable, so that I can make changes and have them show up immediately, so I follow these steps to install:
- Clone this repo
- Install prerequisites with
pip install -r requirements.txt - Install pyfind as editable:
pip install --editable .
After installation, create a projects.txt file in the pyfind folder that contains all of the local folders/paths you'd like to include in the default search, one on each line.
After it's installed, you can use pyfind at a command prompt. For example, use pyfind -h to display the help screen:
In addition to the default search scope (all project folders defined in the projects.txt file), three other usages are supported as covered below.
You can explicitly specify a search folder on the command line, to search files in that folder as well as its subfolders.
The -s/--subfolders command line option controls whether to search subfolders. By default, subfolders are not searched, but you can include this option to search all subfolders.
The *stdlib option for the starting folder is a shortcut for searching the Python standard library source code for the currently active Python interpreter. For example, here's a search for spam in the standard library:
The *packages option for the starting folder is a shortcut for searching across the Python source code for all packages installed in the current environment that pyfind is running in. For example, here's a search across over 2 million lines of code in my current bloated Python environment for use of the post method in the Requests package:
The examples above all use pyfind as a command line tool, however it msy be
useful to call the search_file function from other code to search a file. Here's
an example:
Pytest unit tests are in the tests folder. Note that tests should be run with the pytest command from within that folder (and not from the project root folder).
Pyfind is a work in progress — pull requests, feature requests and issues welcome. I've implemented the functionality I find useful, but I'm interested in knowing what other types of functionality may be useful to others. Please log an issue if you have a suggestion. Thanks!
Pyfind is licensed under the MIT License.
Copyright © 2016 by Doug Mahugh