I got an email from a reader in Spain that read, in part

I did a test and got an AttributeError. Maybe you are interested in debugging it.

The email referred to

The Visitor Pattern in Python

which I wrote in January of last year. I pulled down the code, gave it a whirl, and found that I had a bug in it.

Wrong code ⇒ bad code.

I wanted to debug it.

Here it is.

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# visit.py

import inspect

__all__ = ['on', 'when']

def on(param_name):
def f(fn):
dispatcher = Dispatcher(param_name, fn)
return dispatcher
return f


def when(param_type):
def f(fn):
frame = inspect.currentframe().f_back
dispatcher = frame.f_locals[fn.func_name]
if not isinstance(dispatcher, Dispatcher):
dispatcher = dispatcher.dispatcher
dispatcher.add_target(param_type, fn)
def ff(*args, **kw):
return dispatcher(*args, **kw)
ff.dispatcher = dispatcher
return ff
return f


class Dispatcher(object):
def __init__(self, param_name, fn):
frame = inspect.currentframe().f_back.f_back
top_level = frame.f_locals == frame.f_globals
self.param_index = inspect.getargspec(fn).args.index(param_name)
self.param_name = param_name
self.targets = {}

def __call__(self, *args, **kw):
typ = args[self.param_index].__class__ # BUG FIX: use __class__ here
d = self.targets.get(typ)
if d is not None:
return d(*args, **kw)
else:
issub = issubclass
t = self.targets
ks = t.iterkeys()
return [t[k](*args, **kw) for k in ks if issub(typ, k)]

def add_target(self, typ, target):
self.targets[typ] = target

Then, in the example code, I had a name conflict. Here’s a fix to that.

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# ast.py

import visit as v
import sys

class BaseNode:
def accept(self, visitor):
visitor.visit(self)


class Literal(BaseNode):
def __init__(self, val):
self.value = val


class VariableNode(BaseNode):
def __init__(self, name):
self.name = name


class AssignmentExpression(BaseNode):
def __init__(self, left, right):
self.children = [left, right]


class AbstractSyntaxTreeVisitor(object):
@v.on('node')
def visit(self, node):
"""
This is the generic method that initializes the
dynamic dispatcher.
"""

@v.when(BaseNode)
def visit(self, node):
"""
Will run for nodes that do specifically match the
provided type.
"""
print "Unrecognized node:", node

@v.when(AssignmentExpression)
def visit(self, node):
""" Matches nodes of type AssignmentExpression. """
node.children[0].accept(self)
sys.stdout.write('=')
node.children[1].accept(self)

@v.when(VariableNode)
def visit(self, node):
""" Matches nodes that contain variables. """
sys.stdout.write(str(node.name))

@v.when(Literal)
def visit(self, node):
""" Matches nodes that contain literal values. """
sys.stdout.write(str(node.value))

Now, with an example like this, we see that it works correctly.

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import ast

v = ast.VariableNode('x')
l = ast.Literal(5)
n = ast.AssignmentExpression(v, l)
visitor = ast.AbstractSyntaxTreeVisitor()
visitor.visit(n)
print ''

And that’s it.

Get the new visit code from visit.py