[Tutor] function and module

[Alan Gauld]

"linda.s" <samrobertsmith at gmail.com> wrote 

>I am reading a sample code and want to figure out where a function
> (for instance, abc) is from.
> There are many lines such as
> from XXX import *

This is one of the chief reasons why 'from x import *' 
is bad practice.

> Is there a way not going through all these imported modules to find
> where the abc is from (by the way, the abc function is not in the
> current module)?

There are a couple of possibilities.
1) if you can import the moduile into a >>> propmpt you could 
ask abc where it's from.
>>> print abc.__file__ should work

2) if the import won't work I think the next best technoque 
is probably to use grep, especially if the modules are all 
in a common directory tree.

grep "def abc" */*.py

Or write a short Python script to traverse the tree using os.walk 
and try doing 'from foo import abc' on each file....

HTH,

-- 
Alan Gauld
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld