On Oct 4, 2017, at 20:22, Yarko Tymciurak <yarkot1@gmail.com> wrote:
I've recently started using a simple conditional breakpoint in ipython, and wonder if - in addition to Nick Coghlan's request for the env 'PYTHONBREAKPOINT' (boolean?), it would make sense (I _think_ so) to add a condition parameter to the breakpoint() call. This does raise several questions, but it seems that it could make for a simple unified way to conditionally call an arbitrary debugger. What I found useful (in the contecxt of ipython - but general enough) you can see in this gist: https://gist.github.com/yarko/bdaa9d3178a6db03e160fdbabb3a9885
If PEP 553's breakpoint() were to follow this sort of interface (with "condition"), it raises a couple of questions: - how would a missing (default) parameter be done? - how would parameters to be passed to the debugger "of record" be passed in (named tuple? - sort of ugly) - would PYTHONBREAKPOINT be a global switch (I think yes), vs a `condition` default.
I have no dog in the fight, but to raise the possibility (?) of having PEP 553 implement simple conditional breakpoint processing.
Thanks for bringing this up Yarko. I think this could be done with the current specification for PEP 553 and an additional API from the various debuggers. I don’t think it needs to be part of PEP 553 explicitly, given the additional complications you describe above. Remember that both built-in breakpoint() and sys.breakpointhook() accept *args, **kws, and it is left up to the actual debugger API to interpret/accept those additional arguments. So let’s say you wanted to implement this behavior with pdb. I think you could do something as simple as: def conditional_set_trace(*, condition=True): if condition: pdb.set_trace() sys.breakpointhook = conditional_set_trace Then in your code, you would just write: def foo(value): breakpoint(condition=(value < 0)) With the IPython gist you referenced, you wouldn’t even need that convenience function. Just set sys.breakpointhook=conditional_breakpoint.breakpoint_ and viola! You could also PYTHONBREAKPOINT=conditional_breakpoint.breakpoint_ python3.7 … and it should Just Work. Cheers, -Barry