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willum070 edited this page Mar 6, 2014 · 1 revision

##Notes on using PyLint

PyLint (http://pylint.org, http://docs.pylint.org/index.html) is a code checker that detects errors in Python code, helping to achieve a consistent coding standard. When you run PyLint on a .py file or module, it checks your code against an assortment of standards and generates a report.

From the virtual environment, PyLint installs with pip:

pip install pylint

At the time of writing, pip install PyLint 1.0.0 which has a severe issue on Windows with trailing whitespace: see https://bitbucket.org/logilab/pylint/commits/02db08561a8e. A workaround is to manually update format.py which is located under Lib\site-packages\pylint\checkers. Alternatively, use the --disable=trailing-whitespace option.

Using PyLint with CodaLab

To run PyLint against the entire CodaLab project:

  1. Navigate to \codalab\codalab (wherever that is located on your local system).
  2. Run pylint codalab to scan the entire project.

PyLint Tips

  • To output your report in HTML format, use the -f html option.
  • To pipe the report output into a file, use this syntax: pylint codalab -f html > results.html
  • Use the -rn option to omit the report tables.

Configure PyLint Rules

PyLint's rules are configurable. To generate a default config file:

pylint --generate-rcfile > .pylint-conf

To use the generated config (assuming .pylint-conf is located in the current directory):

pylint –-rcfile=.pylint-conf <module or package>

Below is a set of customizations that will make working with PyLint a bit easier.

  • Output format. PyLint can format its output multiple ways. I find the HTML format to be convenient.
output-format=html
  • Line length. PyLint enforces an 80 character line length by default. It is on the short side.
max-line-length=120
  • Number of methods on a class. PyLint likes at least two methods on a class. It also has an upper-limit which is too low when writing a class derived from TestCase for example.
min-public-methods=1
max-public-methods=100
  • Dealing with Django generated members such as objects:
generated-members=REQUEST,acl_users,aq_parent,objects,^.DoesNotExist$
  • The disable flag allows to turn off rules using their ID:
disable=R0921

* R0921: Abstract class not references (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8261526/how-to-fix-pylint-warning-abstract-class-not-referenced).

###Related tools

pep8: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pep8/. Compared to PyLint, pep8 feels more lightweight in its feedback and probably too much so.

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