macro preprocessor, for debugging information

[Phil Hunt]

Imagine I'm writing some code with debugging information:

   debug = 1 \turn debugging on/off
   def myFunction(a)
      if debug: print 'running myFunction() a =', a
      #...rest of myFunction...

When I have finished debugging, I can set debug to 0 and it no longer 
prints the debugging info. All well and good. But I'm still left with
the run-time overhead of executing the ``if debug'' statement exery
time I call myFunction(). Is there any way to avoid the overhead, 
e.g. like C's:

#if DEBUG
   printf("a = %d\n", a);
#endif

I imagine it wouldn't be that difficult in Python to intercept the
function call when debugging is on, and print out the parameters then,
but I'm looking for a more general solution, e.g. one that can print 
debugging information in the middle of a function.

-- 
Phil Hunt....philh at vision25.demon.co.uk