'How to get method parameter names?

Given the Python function:

def a_method(arg1, arg2):
    pass

How can I extract the number and names of the arguments. I.e., given that I have a reference to func, I want the func.[something] to return ("arg1", "arg2").

The usage scenario for this is that I have a decorator, and I wish to use the method arguments in the same order that they appear for the actual function as a key. I.e., how would the decorator look that printed "a,b" when I call a_method("a", "b")?



Solution 1:[1]

Take a look at the inspect module - this will do the inspection of the various code object properties for you.

>>> inspect.getfullargspec(a_method)
(['arg1', 'arg2'], None, None, None)

The other results are the name of the *args and **kwargs variables, and the defaults provided. ie.

>>> def foo(a, b, c=4, *arglist, **keywords): pass
>>> inspect.getfullargspec(foo)
(['a', 'b', 'c'], 'arglist', 'keywords', (4,))

Note that some callables may not be introspectable in certain implementations of Python. For Example, in CPython, some built-in functions defined in C provide no metadata about their arguments. As a result, you will get a ValueError if you use inspect.getfullargspec() on a built-in function.

Since Python 3.3, you can use inspect.signature() to see the call signature of a callable object:

>>> inspect.signature(foo)
<Signature (a, b, c=4, *arglist, **keywords)>

Solution 2:[2]

In CPython, the number of arguments is

a_method.func_code.co_argcount

and their names are in the beginning of

a_method.func_code.co_varnames

These are implementation details of CPython, so this probably does not work in other implementations of Python, such as IronPython and Jython.

One portable way to admit "pass-through" arguments is to define your function with the signature func(*args, **kwargs). This is used a lot in e.g. matplotlib, where the outer API layer passes lots of keyword arguments to the lower-level API.

Solution 3:[3]

The Python 3 version is:

def _get_args_dict(fn, args, kwargs):
    args_names = fn.__code__.co_varnames[:fn.__code__.co_argcount]
    return {**dict(zip(args_names, args)), **kwargs}

The method returns a dictionary containing both args and kwargs.

Solution 4:[4]

In a decorator method, you can list arguments of the original method in this way:

import inspect, itertools 

def my_decorator():

        def decorator(f):

            def wrapper(*args, **kwargs):

                # if you want arguments names as a list:
                args_name = inspect.getargspec(f)[0]
                print(args_name)

                # if you want names and values as a dictionary:
                args_dict = dict(itertools.izip(args_name, args))
                print(args_dict)

                # if you want values as a list:
                args_values = args_dict.values()
                print(args_values)

If the **kwargs are important for you, then it will be a bit complicated:

        def wrapper(*args, **kwargs):

            args_name = list(OrderedDict.fromkeys(inspect.getargspec(f)[0] + kwargs.keys()))
            args_dict = OrderedDict(list(itertools.izip(args_name, args)) + list(kwargs.iteritems()))
            args_values = args_dict.values()

Example:

@my_decorator()
def my_function(x, y, z=3):
    pass


my_function(1, y=2, z=3, w=0)
# prints:
# ['x', 'y', 'z', 'w']
# {'y': 2, 'x': 1, 'z': 3, 'w': 0}
# [1, 2, 3, 0]

Solution 5:[5]

I think what you're looking for is the locals method -


In [6]: def test(a, b):print locals()
   ...: 

In [7]: test(1,2)              
{'a': 1, 'b': 2}

Solution 6:[6]

Python 3.5+:

DeprecationWarning: inspect.getargspec() is deprecated since Python 3.0, use inspect.signature() or inspect.getfullargspec()

So previously:

func_args = inspect.getargspec(function).args

Now:

func_args = list(inspect.signature(function).parameters.keys())

To test:

'arg' in list(inspect.signature(function).parameters.keys())

Given that we have function 'function' which takes argument 'arg', this will evaluate as True, otherwise as False.

Example from the Python console:

Python 3.6.0 (v3.6.0:41df79263a11, Dec 23 2016, 07:18:10) [MSC v.1900 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
>>> import inspect
>>> 'iterable' in list(inspect.signature(sum).parameters.keys())
True

Solution 7:[7]

Here is something I think will work for what you want, using a decorator.

class LogWrappedFunction(object):
    def __init__(self, function):
        self.function = function

    def logAndCall(self, *arguments, **namedArguments):
        print "Calling %s with arguments %s and named arguments %s" %\
                      (self.function.func_name, arguments, namedArguments)
        self.function.__call__(*arguments, **namedArguments)

def logwrap(function):
    return LogWrappedFunction(function).logAndCall

@logwrap
def doSomething(spam, eggs, foo, bar):
    print "Doing something totally awesome with %s and %s." % (spam, eggs)


doSomething("beans","rice", foo="wiggity", bar="wack")

Run it, it will yield the following output:

C:\scripts>python decoratorExample.py
Calling doSomething with arguments ('beans', 'rice') and named arguments {'foo':
 'wiggity', 'bar': 'wack'}
Doing something totally awesome with beans and rice.

Solution 8:[8]

In Python 3.+ with the Signature object at hand, an easy way to get a mapping between argument names to values, is using the Signature's bind() method!

For example, here is a decorator for printing a map like that:

import inspect

def decorator(f):
    def wrapper(*args, **kwargs):
        bound_args = inspect.signature(f).bind(*args, **kwargs)
        bound_args.apply_defaults()
        print(dict(bound_args.arguments))

        return f(*args, **kwargs)

    return wrapper

@decorator
def foo(x, y, param_with_default="bars", **kwargs):
    pass

foo(1, 2, extra="baz")
# This will print: {'kwargs': {'extra': 'baz'}, 'param_with_default': 'bars', 'y': 2, 'x': 1}

Solution 9:[9]

Here is another way to get the function parameters without using any module.

def get_parameters(func):
    keys = func.__code__.co_varnames[:func.__code__.co_argcount][::-1]
    sorter = {j: i for i, j in enumerate(keys[::-1])} 
    values = func.__defaults__[::-1]
    kwargs = {i: j for i, j in zip(keys, values)}
    sorted_args = tuple(
        sorted([i for i in keys if i not in kwargs], key=sorter.get)
    )
    sorted_kwargs = {
        i: kwargs[i] for i in sorted(kwargs.keys(), key=sorter.get)
    }   
    return sorted_args, sorted_kwargs


def f(a, b, c="hello", d="world"): var = a
    

print(get_parameters(f))

Output:

(('a', 'b'), {'c': 'hello', 'd': 'world'})

Solution 10:[10]

inspect.signature is very slow. Fastest way is

def f(a, b=1, *args, c, d=1, **kwargs):
   pass

f_code = f.__code__
f_code.co_varnames[:f_code.co_argcount + f_code.co_kwonlyargcount]  # ('a', 'b', 'c', 'd')

Solution 11:[11]

Returns a list of argument names, takes care of partials and regular functions:

def get_func_args(f):
    if hasattr(f, 'args'):
        return f.args
    else:
        return list(inspect.signature(f).parameters)

Solution 12:[12]

Update for Brian's answer:

If a function in Python 3 has keyword-only arguments, then you need to use inspect.getfullargspec:

def yay(a, b=10, *, c=20, d=30):
    pass
inspect.getfullargspec(yay)

yields this:

FullArgSpec(args=['a', 'b'], varargs=None, varkw=None, defaults=(10,), kwonlyargs=['c', 'd'], kwonlydefaults={'c': 20, 'd': 30}, annotations={})

Solution 13:[13]

In python 3, below is to make *args and **kwargs into a dict (use OrderedDict for python < 3.6 to maintain dict orders):

from functools import wraps

def display_param(func):
    @wraps(func)
    def wrapper(*args, **kwargs):

        param = inspect.signature(func).parameters
        all_param = {
            k: args[n] if n < len(args) else v.default
            for n, (k, v) in enumerate(param.items()) if k != 'kwargs'
        }
        all_param .update(kwargs)
        print(all_param)

        return func(**all_param)
    return wrapper

Solution 14:[14]

Simple easy to read answer as of python 3.0 onwards:

import inspect


args_names = inspect.signature(function).parameters.keys()
args_dict = {
    **dict(zip(args_names, args)),
    **kwargs,
}


Solution 15:[15]

To update a little bit Brian's answer, there is now a nice backport of inspect.signature that you can use in older python versions: funcsigs. So my personal preference would go for

try:  # python 3.3+
    from inspect import signature
except ImportError:
    from funcsigs import signature

def aMethod(arg1, arg2):
    pass

sig = signature(aMethod)
print(sig)

For fun, if you're interested in playing with Signature objects and even creating functions with random signatures dynamically you can have a look at my makefun project.

Solution 16:[16]

I was googling to find how to print function name and supplied arguments for an assignment I had to create a decorator to print them and I used this:

def print_func_name_and_args(func):
    
    def wrapper(*args, **kwargs):
    print(f"Function name: '{func.__name__}' supplied args: '{args}'")
    func(args[0], args[1], args[2])
    return wrapper


@print_func_name_and_args
def my_function(n1, n2, n3):
    print(n1 * n2 * n3)
    
my_function(1, 2, 3)

#Function name: 'my_function' supplied args: '(1, 2, 3)'

Solution 17:[17]

Is it possible to use inspect API to read constant argument value -1 from the lambda func fun in the code below?

def my_func(v, axis):
  pass

fun = lambda v: my_func(v, axis=-1)