If I write a standalong script/program, it looks just like a module to the outside world (as long as I name it correctly), though it might have a #! line at the top. Otherwise, to a static analyzer, it still looks like a module, which means anything it defines might be visible from the outside. Consequently, if I happen not to use module globals or instance attributes, tools like pylint won't complain.
I think it would be nice if I could tell such tools either:
1. The thing I'm feeding you is a standalone program. Nobody else might reference this stuff, so complain about unused names.
2. This particular thing I'm defining is either public or private.
So, if I have this block of "constants":
ONE_SECOND = 1000 # ms ONE_MINUTE = 60 * ONE_SECOND ONE_HOUR = 60 * ONE_MINUTE ONE_SECOND_DELTA = datetime.timedelta(seconds=1) ONE_MINUTE_DELTA = datetime.timedelta(minutes=1) ONE_DAY_DELTA = datetime.timedelta(days=1) ONE_YEAR_DELTA = 365 * ONE_DAY_DELTA EPSILON = 1e-10
it would be nice if I was told if any were unused.
Similarly, if an attribute of a class is defined but not used elsewhere within the class (or perhaps within the defining module), I'd like to know if it's unused. At a minimum, if I've defined an instance method with a leading underscore in its name, it would be real nice if I was told about lack of use within the class. For classes where most of the API is public, it might be nice to mark the class as public then explicitly mark any private attributes:
# <marker> public class Point: def __init__(self): self.x = self.y = 0.0 # <marker> private self.r = self.theta = 0.0
# <marker> private def convert_to_polar(self): self.r = math.sqrt(self.x**2 + self.y**2) self.theta = math.atan2(self.y, self.x)
Do any existing static analysis tools support anything like this? I'm certainly not married to the notion of annotating attributes. Also, I should note that I am still using Python 2.7. If there are any features of Python 3 that facilitate this, I'd love to hear about it.
Thx,
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