Book Image

Metaprogramming with Python

By : Sulekha AloorRavi
Book Image

Metaprogramming with Python

By: Sulekha AloorRavi

Overview of this book

Effective and reusable code makes your application development process seamless and easily maintainable. With Python, you will have access to advanced metaprogramming features that you can use to build high-performing applications. The book starts by introducing you to the need and applications of metaprogramming, before navigating the fundamentals of object-oriented programming. Next, you will learn about simple decorators, work with metaclasses, and later focus on introspection and reflection. You’ll also delve into generics and typing before defining templates for algorithms. As you progress, you will understand your code using abstract syntax trees and explore method resolution order. This Python book also shows you how to create your own dynamic objects before structuring the objects through design patterns. Finally, you will learn simple code-generation techniques along with discovering best practices and eventually building your own applications. By the end of this learning journey, you’ll have acquired the skills and confidence you need to design and build reusable high-performing applications that can solve real-world problems.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Part 1: Fundamentals – Introduction to Object-Oriented Python and Metaprogramming
4
Part 2: Deep Dive – Building Blocks of Metaprogramming I
11
Part 3: Deep Dive – Building Blocks of Metaprogramming II

Chapter 9: Understanding Code through Abstract Syntax Tree

In this chapter, we will look at what abstract syntax trees are and how to understand the syntax tree of each unit of the Python code we write.

Any programming language is designed with its own syntax, which is used by developers while coding in the language following specific syntax. The interpreter or compiler of a programming language interprets the syntax of the language and compiles or interprets the code and executes it to achieve the desired result.

In Python, an abstract syntax tree (AST) provides an abstract representation of the syntax of the code in the form of a tree. Python has a library named ast that can be used to understand the abstract syntax of the code that we develop.

Throughout this chapter, we will look at understanding the syntax tree of some of the important code snippets that we developed in previous chapters, and we will also look at modifying or adding more information to the code through...