User:Mstone/Tricks

This page contains pointers to a collection of idioms which I rely on to accomplish tasks quickly and with predictable results.

verbose python tracebacks

Just import nice_traces; if you're feeling fancy, then consider trace(sys.exc_info())

verbosity controls on logging

See trac_helper.py

pythonic relations

See my relation module and Alloy (which was my inspiration, though I've made nothing more than a poor knockoff).

relational error logging

See trac_helper.py and collect-pkgs.py.

email-based error reporting

See email_warnings.py.

pdb

from pdb import set_trace as debug ... debug()

rpm makefiles

See rpm-packaging as well as individual projects like olpc-netutils along with my Fedora packaging bibliography.

pymeta parser-based controllers

triagebot is based on a model-view-controller architecture where the controller object is assembled at runtime based on data collected with a metaclass.

pymeta makes it easy to pick the right response to complicated input.

python gdb macros

http://wiki.python.org/moin/DebuggingWithGdb

python memory profiling

guppy + Tomeu's memory leak testing writeup.

tree-based python context management

puritan's main.py and context.py

custom dbus decorators

sds stub

ipython for exploring interprocess communication

IPython is wonderfully helpful for exploring xml-rpc and dbus interfaces.

code to make pylint happy

rainbow's inject.py can be automatically checked for many errors by pylint because it passes all data explicitly through function calls.

C error handling

nss-rainbow uses a dash of code-generation and a lot of convention to be very consistent about error detection and handling.

C warning flags & Makefile tips

nss-rainbow's Makefile gets a number of things right, though it can still be improved in several ways.

scripts for user creation

provision users on new machines in a scripted fashion.