Python – How to tell where the python script is hanging

debuggingpython

So I'm debugging my python program and have encountered a bug that makes the program hang, as if in an infinite loop. Now, I had a problem with an infinite loop before, but when it hung up I could kill the program and python spat out a helpful exception that told me where the program terminated when I sent it the kill command. Now, however, when the program hangs up and I ctrl-c it, it does not abort but continues running. Is there any tool I can use to locate the hang up? I'm new to profiling but from what I know a profiler can only provide you with information about a program that has successfully completed. Or can you use a profiler to debug such hang ups?

Best Answer

Let's assume that you are running your program as:

python YOURSCRIPT.py

Try running your program as:

python -m trace --trace YOURSCRIPT.py

And have some patience while lots of stuff is printed on the screen. If you have an infinite loop, it will go on for-ever (halting problem). If it gets stuck somewhere, then mostly you are stuck on I/O or it is a deadlock.

Related Solutions

Python – How to execute a program or call a system command

Use the subprocess module in the standard library:

import subprocess
subprocess.run(["ls", "-l"])

The advantage of subprocess.run over os.system is that it is more flexible (you can get the stdout, stderr, the "real" status code, better error handling, etc...).

Even the documentation for os.system recommends using subprocess instead:

The subprocess module provides more powerful facilities for spawning new processes and retrieving their results; using that module is preferable to using this function. See the Replacing Older Functions with the subprocess Module section in the subprocess documentation for some helpful recipes.

On Python 3.4 and earlier, use subprocess.call instead of .run:

subprocess.call(["ls", "-l"])

Python – How to copy a file in Python

shutil has many methods you can use. One of which is:

from shutil import copyfile
copyfile(src, dst)

# 2nd option
copy(src, dst)  # dst can be a folder; use copy2() to preserve timestamp

Copy the contents of the file named src to a file named dst. Both src and dst need to be the entire filename of the files, including path.
The destination location must be writable; otherwise, an IOError exception will be raised.
If dst already exists, it will be replaced.
Special files such as character or block devices and pipes cannot be copied with this function.
With copy, src and dst are path names given as strs.

Another shutil method to look at is shutil.copy2(). It's similar but preserves more metadata (e.g. time stamps).

If you use os.path operations, use copy rather than copyfile. copyfile will only accept strings.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Python – How to execute a program or call a system command

Python – How to copy a file in Python

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