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PyTA

PyTA is a Python program which uses static code analysis to help students find and fix common coding errors in introductory Python courses. Python already has great static analysis tools like pep8 and pylint, but these tools do not necessarily have the most beginner-friendly format. PyTA has two central goals:

  1. Statically identify common coding errors by using existing linting tools and building custom linters (e.g., as pylint checkers).
  2. Present beautiful, intuitive messages to students that are both helpful for fixing errors, and good preparation for the terser messages they will see in their careers.

This is a new project started in the Summer of 2016, and takes the form of a wrapper around pylint (with custom checkers) that operates directly on Python modules, as well as a website with some supplementary material going into further detail for the emitted errors.

For greater details on the errors PyTA checks for: Help Documentation.

For help getting started using PyTA: Quick Start.

Installation

If you're interested in using PyTA, you can install it using pip (or pip3, on OSX/Linux):

> pip install python-ta

Development

If you're developing PyTA:

  1. First, clone this repository.
  2. Open a terminal in this repo, and run pip install -e ".[dev, cfg, z3]" to install the dependencies.
  3. Then run pre-commit install to install the pre-commit hooks (for automatically formatting and checking your code on each commit).

While not strictly necessary for debugging, some debugging tools require graphviz to be installed on your system.

Tests

To run the test suite, run the following command from inside the pyta directory:

> python -m pytest tests  # Or python3 on OSX/Linux

Generating the docs

The PyTA documentation is generated using Sphinx. To generate the documentation locally, run the commands:

> cd docs
> make html

Then open the file docs/_build/html/index.html in your web browser!

Demo

You can currently see a proof of concept in this repository. Clone it, and then run python in this directory (PyTA is primarily meant to be included as a library). In the Python interpreter, try running:

>>> import python_ta
>>> python_ta.check_all('examples.custom_checkers.e9999_forbidden_import')
[Some output should be shown]
>>> python_ta.doc('E9999')

Contributors

Lorena Buciu, Simon Chen, Freeman Cheng, Ivan Chepelev, Yianni Culmone, Nigel Fong, Adam Gleizer, Ibrahim Hasan, Niayesh Ilkhani, Craig Katsube, Rebecca Kay, Christopher Koehler, David Kim, Simeon Krastnikov, Ryan Lee, Christopher Li, Hayley Lin, Bruce Liu, Merrick Liu, Wendy Liu, Yibing (Amy) Lu, Maria Shurui Ma, Aina Fatema Asim Merchant, Shweta Mogalapalli, Ignas Panero Armoska, Justin Park, Harshkumar Patel, Varun Sahni, Eleonora Scognamiglio, Stephen Scott, Amr Sharaf, Richard Shi, Kavin Singh, Alexey Strokach, Sophy Sun, Utku Egemen Umut, Sarah Wang, Lana Wehbeh, Jasmine Wu, Raine Yang, Philippe Yu, Yi Cheng (Michael) Zhao