Python inspect.getargspec with built-in function

Question

I'm trying to figure out the arguments of a method retrieved from a module. I found an inspect module with a handy function, getargspec. It works for a function that I define, but won't work for functions from an imported module.

import math, inspect
def foobar(a,b=11): pass
inspect.getargspec(foobar)  # this works
inspect.getargspec(math.sin) # this doesn't

I'll get an error like this:

   File "C:\...\Python 2.5\Lib\inspect.py", line 743, in getargspec
     raise TypeError('arg is not a Python function')
 TypeError: arg is not a Python function

Is inspect.getargspec designed only for local functions or am I doing something wrong?

yes, it's designed this way, see http://bugs.python.org/issue1748064 — georg, Jul 05 '12 at 11:16

score 13 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 05 '12 at 11:18

13

It is impossible to get this kind of information for a function that is implemented in C instead of Python.

The reason for this is that there is no way to find out what arguments the method accepts except by parsing the (free-form) docstring since arguments are passed in a (somewhat) getarg-like way - i.e. it's impossible to find out what arguments it accepts without actually executing the function.

answered Jul 05 '12 at 11:18

ThiefMaster

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Okay, I'm gettin back to this. So is there even any dirty way to do it. If it requires calling the function, it's okay. – PeetWc Sep 04 '13 at 10:40
**No**, not really. You could only bruteforce some arguments where calling the function does not raise an exception. But that's hardly useful - you wouldn't even know if there are some optional arguments you didn't try etc. – ThiefMaster Sep 04 '13 at 11:52
Alrite. Thanks. I need to find another way. – PeetWc Sep 04 '13 at 11:58

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

You can get the doc string for such functions/methods which nearly always contains the same type of information as getargspec. (I.e. param names, no. of params, optional ones, default values).

In your example

import math
math.sin.__doc__

Gives

"sin(x)

Return the sine of x (measured in radians)"

Unfortunately there are several different standards in operation. See What is the standard Python docstring format?

You could detect which of the standards is in use, and then grab the info that way. From the above link it looks like pyment could be helpful in doing just that.

Python inspect.getargspec with built-in function

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