sciris.sc_utils¶

Miscellaneous utilities for type checking, printing, dates and times, etc.

Note: there are a lot! The design philosophy has been that it’s easier to ignore a function that you don’t need than write one from scratch that you do need.

Highlights:

dcp(): shortcut to copy.deepcopy()
pp(): shortcut to pprint.pprint()
isnumber(): checks if something is any number type
tolist(): converts any object to a list, for easy iteration
toarray(): tries to convert any object to an array, for easy use with numpy
mergedicts(): merges any set of inputs into a dictionary
mergelists(): merges any set of inputs into a list
runcommand(): simple way of executing a shell command
download(): download multiple URLs in parallel

Functions

`asciify`	Convert an arbitrary Unicode string to ASCII.
`checktype`	A convenience function for checking instances.
`compareversions`	Function to compare versions, expecting both arguments to be a string of the format 1.2.3, but numeric works too.
`cp`	Shortcut to perform a shallow copy operation
`dcp`	Shortcut to perform a deep copy operation
`download`	Download one or more URLs in parallel and return output or save them to disk.
`fast_uuid`	Create a fast UID or set of UIDs.
`flexstr`	Try converting any object to a "regular" string (i.e.
`freeze`	Alias for pip freeze.
`getcaller`	Try to get information on the calling function, but fail gracefully.
`getplatform`	Return the name of the current platform: 'linux', 'windows', 'mac', or 'other'.
`gitinfo`	Retrieve git info
`htmlify`	Convert a string to its HTML representation by converting unicode characters, characters that need to be escaped, and newlines.
`importbyname`	Import modules by name.
`isarray`	Check whether something is a Numpy array, and optionally check the dtype.
`isiterable`	Simply determine whether or not the input is iterable.
`islinux`	Alias to `sc.getplatform('linux')`
`ismac`	Alias to `sc.getplatform('mac')`
`isnumber`	Determine whether or not the input is a number.
`isstring`	Determine whether or not the input is string-like (i.e., str or bytes).
`iswindows`	Alias to `sc.getplatform('windows')`
`mergedicts`	Small function to merge multiple dicts together.
`mergelists`	Merge multiple lists together.
`newlinejoin`	Alias to `strjoin(*args, sep='\n')`.
`pp`	Shortcut for pretty-printing the object.
`promotetoarray`	Small function to ensure consistent format for things that should be arrays (note: `toarray()` and `promotetoarray()` are identical).
`promotetolist`	Make sure object is always a list (note: `tolist()`/`promotetolist()` are identical).
`require`	Check whether environment requirements are met.
`runcommand`	Make it easier to run shell commands.
`sha`	Shortcut for the standard hashing (SHA) method
`strjoin`	Like string `join()`, but handles more flexible inputs, converts items to strings.
`strsplit`	Convenience function to split common types of strings.
`suggest`	Return suggested item
`swapdict`	Swap the keys and values of a dictionary.
`toarray`	Small function to ensure consistent format for things that should be arrays (note: `toarray()` and `promotetoarray()` are identical).
`tolist`	Make sure object is always a list (note: `tolist()`/`promotetolist()` are identical).
`traceback`	Shortcut for accessing the traceback
`transposelist`	Convert e.g.
`uniquename`	Given a name and a list of other names, find a replacement to the name that doesn't conflict with the other names, and pass it back.
`urlopen`	Download a single URL.
`uuid`	Shortcut for creating a UUID; default is to create a UUID4.
`wget`	Download a single URL.

Classes

`LazyModule`	Create a "lazy" module that is loaded if and only if an attribute is called.
`Link`	A class to differentiate between an object and a link to an object.
`autolist`	A simple extension to a list that defines add methods to simplify appending and extension.
`prettyobj`	Use pretty repr for objects, instead of just showing the type and memory pointer (the Python default for objects).
`tryexcept`	Simple class to catch exceptions in a single line -- effectively an alias to contextlib.suppress.

Exceptions

`KeyNotFoundError`	A tiny class to fix repr for KeyErrors.
`LinkException`	An exception to raise when links are broken, for exclusive use with the Link class.