We just released two new packages! 
- ExpressionExplorer.jl (EE) – find all variables assigned and referenced in a piece of code.
- PlutoDependencyExplorer.jl (PDE) – sort a list of codes by execution order
Both packages are quite small and load fast, with minimal dependencies. The packages were part of Pluto’s source code, but we decided to release them separately so that they can be used in other projects!
ExpressionExplorer
Find all variables referenced and defined in an expression. This package is used internally by Pluto to find links between cells.
Quick example
julia> using ExpressionExplorer
julia> ex = :(const words = split(line));
julia> node = ExpressionExplorer.compute_reactive_node(ex);
julia> node.references
Set{Symbol} with 2 elements:
:line
:split
julia> node.definitions
Set{Symbol} with 1 element:
:words
For more information, check out the documentation: ExpressionExplorer.jl
PlutoDependencyExplorer
This package contains Pluto’s dependency sorting algorithm. Given a list of cell codes, PlutoDependencyExplorer can tell you in which order these cells should run. For example:
julia> import PlutoDependencyExplorer as PDE
julia> struct SimpleCell <: PDE.AbstractCell
code
end
julia> notebook = SimpleCell.([
"x + y"
"x = 1"
"y = x + 2"
]);
julia> empty_topology = PDE.NotebookTopology{SimpleCell}();
julia> topology = PDE.updated_topology(
empty_topology,
notebook, notebook;
get_code_str = c -> c.code,
get_code_expr = c -> Meta.parse(c.code),
);
julia> order = PDE.topological_order(topology);
julia> order.runnable
3-element Vector{SimpleCell}:
SimpleCell("x = 1")
SimpleCell("y = x + 2")
SimpleCell("x + y")
For more information, check out the documentation: PlutoDependencyExplorer.jl
Which package should I use?
PlutoDependencyExplorer uses the low-level package ExpressionExplorer to find the assignments and references of each cell. PlutoDependencyExplorer uses this information to build a dependency graph between cells (i.e. a NotebookTopology), which can be used to find the order to run them in (a TopologicalOrder).
If you are interested in ordering a list of expressions in execution order (the order that Pluto runs cells in), then use PlutoDependencyExplorer. If you just want to know which variables are assigned or referenced in a single expression, use ExpressionExplorer.
Let us know what you think!
We hope that these packages can be useful to the Julia community! Do you have any fun ideas? Or comments about the package? Let us know!