Testing if a global is defined in a module

[Steven D'Aprano]

Tim Johnson wrote:

>   dir(<targetmodule>) will also show globals from other modules imported
>   by the target module. So I would need a way to distinguish between
>   those imported and those defined in <targetmodule>

Why would you want to do that? Importing *is* a definition in
<targetmodule>.

Consider these two code snippets:

#1
from math import pi

#2
import math
tau = 2*math.pi
del math


Why do you think it is necessary to distinguish pi from tau? Both names are
local to the current namespace.



>   print(dir(targetmodule)) =>
>    ['Install', 'TestAddresses', '__builtins__', '__doc__',
>    '__file__', '__name__', '__package__', 'chmod', 'consoleMessage',
>    'cp', 'debug', 'erh', 'exists', 'halt', 'is_list', 'load',
>    'makePath', 'mkdir', 'process', 'sys', 'traceback', 'usingCgi']
>    where 'TestAddresses' is a member of an imported module and

You are mistaken. TestAddresses is *not* a member of an imported module. It
is a member of the current module, which may or may not happen to point to
the same object as the other module as well.


>    'usingCgi' is the only data variable defined in <targetmodule>

It seems to me that your approach here is unnecessarily complex and fragile.
I don't know what problem you are trying to solve, but trying to solve it
by intraspecting differences that aren't differences is surely the wrong
way to do it.



-- 
Steven