Way to Determine Method Signatures

This is probably a stupid question, but is there a way to ask the Indigo server to report the signature for a method?

What I do now is consult the Wiki and Adam's excellent Plugin Developer Documenter, but it would be nice if there were a way to get the server to tell me the signature of the method directly.

You mean you provide the function name and the server reports the argument(s) it takes?

[jay (support)]

From inside a plugin:

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import inspect
inspect.getargspec(self.deviceStartComm)
>ArgSpec(args=['self', 'dev'], varargs=None, keywords=None, defaults=None)

It also works in a scripting shell because it is also a plugin (a special one). So in the scripting shell you can see all the methods defined in the Plugin base class. If you do a Reload in Interactive Shell on any plugin, you can inspect any methods defined in that plugin (as well as those in the Plugin base class).

Combine that with:

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dir(self)

to show all methods (beware, it also shows properties which dir won't work on) you can pretty much find and inspect anything about an object.

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Starting shell for plugin MyQ.indigoPlugin.
To access the plugin instance use the global named self.

Python 2.7.10 (default, Jul 30 2016, 19:40:32)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 8.0.0 (clang-800.0.34)]
Connected to Indigo Server v7.0.3, api v2.0 (localhost:1176)
Started Plugin MyQ v7.2.0
>>> import inspect
>>> inspect.getsargsspec(self.deviceStartComm)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<console>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'getsargsspec'
>>>


[jay (support)]

Typo - fixed it in the code snip above.

Perfect. I tried inspect before, but must've done something wrong.

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Python 2.7.10 (default, Jul 30 2016, 19:40:32)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 8.0.0 (clang-800.0.34)]
Connected to Indigo Server v7.0.3, api v2.0 (localhost:1176)
>>> import inspect
>>> inspect.getargspec(self.deviceStartComm)
ArgSpec(args=['self', 'dev'], varargs=None, keywords=None, defaults=None)

>>> inspect.getargspec(self.validatePrefsConfigUi)
ArgSpec(args=['self', 'valuesDict'], varargs=None, keywords=None, defaults=None)

>>> inspect.getargspec(self.validateDeviceConfigUi)
ArgSpec(args=['self', 'valuesDict', 'typeId', 'devId'], varargs=None, keywords=None, defaults=None)
>>>



This will help immensely in confirming I have signatures arranged properly. Thanks Jay.

[jay (support)]

Thanks Matt.

Who?

Thanks Matt.

Who?

Typo - fixed it in the post above.

Bitchin. I wrote a small plugin and it works great. The key parts:

plugin.py

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    def listOfMethods(self, valuesDict, typeId, targetId):
        list_of_methods = dir(self)
        return [(method, method) for method in list_of_methods]

    def inspectMethod(self, valuesDict, typeId):
        import inspect
        method = getattr(self, valuesDict['listOfMethods'])
        signature = inspect.getargspec(method)
        indigo.server.log(u"self.{0}: {1}".format(valuesDict['listOfMethods'], signature))


Menuitems.xml

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    <MenuItem id="methodSignature">
        <Name>Method Signature</Name>
        <ConfigUI>
            <Field id="listOfMethods" type="menu">
                <Label>Method:</Label>
                <List class="self" filter="" method="listOfMethods" dynamicReload="true"/>
                <CallbackMethod>inspectMethod</CallbackMethod>
            </Field>
        </ConfigUI>
    </MenuItem>


Result:

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Mar 1, 2017, 2:07:34 PM
   plugin                       self.actionGroupCreated: ArgSpec(args=['self', 'group'], varargs=None, keywords=None, defaults=None)
   plugin                       self.deviceCreated: ArgSpec(args=['self', 'dev'], varargs=None, keywords=None, defaults=None)


[jay (support)]

Cool. Somewhere in there before callinginspect.getargspec() you might want to see if it's a method using callable(self.XXXX) which will return True if it's a method and False if it's a variable/property. dir() shows all names defined by the object which includes both methods and properties. This might work:

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def listOfMethods():
   list_of_methods = dir(self)
   return [(method, method) for method in list_of_methods if callable(getattr(self, method))]


[jay (support)]

Man, I LOVE Python...

Cool. Somewhere in there before callinginspect.getargspec() you might want to see if it's a method using callable(self.XXXX) which will return True if it's a method and False if it's a variable/property. dir() shows all names defined by the object which includes both methods and properties. This might work:

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def listOfMethods():
   list_of_methods = dir(self)
   return [(method, method) for method in list_of_methods if callable(getattr(self, method))]


Great minds think alike. I couldn't get callable() to work after a couple quick tests (it would pass __delattr__ for example), but I had already done something similar if, somewhat more inelegant:

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    def listOfMethods(self, valuesDict, typeId, targetId):
        list_of_attributes = []
        for method in dir(self):
            try:
                inspect.getargspec(getattr(self, method))
                list_of_attributes.append((method, method))
            except TypeError:
                continue
        return list_of_attributes


[jay (support)]

That works too.

Small change from above. By changing 'self' to 'indigo.PluginBase' in listOfMethods(), it avoids having the calling plugin's methods show up in the returned list. Reposting the whole thing so it's together in one place.

Menuitems.xml

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    <MenuItem id="methodSignature">
        <Name>Method Signature</Name>
        <ConfigUI>
            <Field id="instructions" type="label">
                <Label>Select the method that you would like to inspect.</Label>
            </Field>
            <Field id="listOfMethods" type="menu">
                <Label>Method:</Label>
                <List class="self" filter="" method="listOfMethods" dynamicReload="true"/>
                <CallbackMethod>inspectMethod</CallbackMethod>
            </Field>
        </ConfigUI>
    </MenuItem>


plugin.py

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    def inspectMethod(self, valuesDict, typeId):
        self.logger.debug(u"Call to inspectMethod")

        method = getattr(self, valuesDict['listOfMethods'])
        signature = inspect.getargspec(method)
        indigo.server.log(u"self.{0}: {1}".format(valuesDict['listOfMethods'], signature))

    def listOfMethods(self, valuesDict, typeId, targetId):
        self.logger.debug(u"Call to listOfMethods")

        list_of_attributes = []
        for method in dir(indigo.PluginBase):
            try:
                inspect.getargspec(getattr(indigo.PluginBase, method))
                list_of_attributes.append((method, method))
            except (AttributeError, TypeError):
                continue
        return list_of_attributes




[*] Also updates for Indigo 7 logging. For earlier versions, change 'self.logger.debug' to 'self.debugLog'.