twisted.python.modules : API documentation

This module aims to provide a unified, object-oriented view of Python's runtime hierarchy.

Python is a very dynamic language with wide variety of introspection utilities. However, these utilities can be hard to use, because there is no consistent API. The introspection API in python is made up of attributes (__name__, __module__, func_name, etc) on instances, modules, classes and functions which vary between those four types, utility modules such as 'inspect' which provide some functionality, the 'imp' module, the "compiler" module, the semantics of PEP 302 support, and setuptools, among other things.

At the top, you have "PythonPath", an abstract representation of sys.path which includes methods to locate top-level modules, with or without loading them. The top-level exposed functions in this module for accessing the system path are "walkModules", "iterModules", and "getModule".

From most to least specific, here are the objects provided:

                 PythonPath  # sys.path
                     |
                     v
                 PathEntry   # one entry on sys.path: an importer
                     |
                     v
                PythonModule # a module or package that can be loaded
                     |
                     v
                PythonAttribute # an attribute of a module (function or class)
                     |
                     v
                PythonAttribute # an attribute of a function or class
                     |
                     v
                    ...

Here's an example of idiomatic usage: this is what you would do to list all of the modules outside the standard library's python-files directory:

   import os
   stdlibdir = os.path.dirname(os.__file__)

   from twisted.python.modules import iterModules

   for modinfo in iterModules():
       if (modinfo.pathEntry.filePath.path != stdlibdir
           and not modinfo.isPackage()):
           print 'unpackaged: %s: %s' % (
               modinfo.name, modinfo.filePath.path)

Class	PythonAttribute	I represent a function, class, or other object that is present.
Class	PythonModule	Representation of a module which could be imported from sys.path.
Class	PathEntry	I am a proxy for a single entry on sys.path.
Interface	IPathImportMapper	This is an internal interface, used to map importers to factories for FilePath-like objects.
Class	PythonPath	I represent the very top of the Python object-space, the module list in `sys.path` and the modules list in `sys.modules`.
Function	walkModules	Deeply iterate all modules on the global python path.
Function	iterModules	Iterate all modules and top-level packages on the global Python path, but do not descend into packages.
Function	getModule	Retrieve a module from the system path.
Function	_isPythonIdentifier	cheezy fake test for proper identifier-ness.
Function	_isPackagePath	Undocumented
Class	_ModuleIteratorHelper	This mixin provides common behavior between python module and path entries, since the mechanism for searching sys.path and __path__ attributes is remarkably similar.
Class	_DefaultMapImpl	Wrapper for the default importer, i.e. None.
Class	_ZipMapImpl	IPathImportMapper implementation for zipimport.ZipImporter.
Function	_defaultSysPathFactory	Provide the default behavior of PythonPath's sys.path factory, which is to return the current value of sys.path.

Parameters	string	a str which might or might not be a valid python identifier.
Returns	True or False

t.p.modules : module documentation