Listing Commands in a Module

New to Julia
1

I was looking to narrow a bulk \tab complete to just the commands in a certain package and found this which works for any defined package.

julia> Cmd.\tab
abstract         isdispatchtuple   mutable           size
hasfreetypevars  isinlinealloc     name              super
instance         layout            names             types
isbitstype       llvm::DIType      ninitialized      uid
isconcretetype   llvm::StructType  parameters        zeroinit

It didn’t seem to be mentioned anywhere obvious. Maybe not that thrilling to most.

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2

You may find this useful:

https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/stdlib/REPL/#Tab-completion-1

There are many clever completions.

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3

What’s missing is a feature to display only exported names of a package, or the ability to make unneeded names private or hidden.

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4

You can at least hide methods by overwriting propertynames.

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5

While it’s easy to get out of date, I encourage package authors to provide convenient API summaries by attaching a docstring to the module itself. For example:

julia> using Images

help?> Images
search: Images ImageSemiMetric nimages ImageDistances ImageAxes ImageTransformations ImageMeta ImageCore ImageMetric ImageMetadata ImagePreMetric ImageFiltering ImageMorphology integral_image

  Constructors, conversions, and traits:

  - Construction: use constructors of specialized packages, e.g., `AxisArray`, `ImageMeta`, etc.
  - "Conversion": `colorview`, `channelview`, `rawview`, `normedview`, `permuteddimsview`
  - Traits: `pixelspacing`, `sdims`, `timeaxis`, `timedim`, `spacedirections`

  Contrast/coloration:

  - `clamp01`, `clamp01nan`, `scaleminmax`, `colorsigned`, `scalesigned`

  Algorithms:

  - Reductions: `maxfinite`, `maxabsfinite`, `minfinite`, `meanfinite`, `sad`, `ssd`, `integral_image`, `boxdiff`, `gaussian_pyramid`
  - Resizing: `restrict`, `imresize` (not yet exported)
  - Filtering: `imfilter`, `imfilter!`, `imfilter_LoG`, `mapwindow`, `imROF`, `padarray`
  - Filtering kernels: `Kernel.` or `KernelFactors.`, followed by `ando[345]`, `guassian2d`, `imaverage`, `imdog`, `imlaplacian`, `prewitt`, `sobel`
  - Exposure : `imhist`, `histeq`, `adjust_gamma`, `histmatch`, `imadjustintensity`, `imstretch`, `imcomplement`, `clahe`, `cliphist`
  - Gradients: `backdiffx`, `backdiffy`, `forwarddiffx`, `forwarddiffy`, `imgradients`
  - Edge detection: `imedge`, `imgradients`, `thin_edges`, `magnitude`, `phase`, `magnitudephase`, `orientation`, `canny`
  - Corner detection: `imcorner`,`imcorner_subpixel`, `harris`, `shi_tomasi`, `kitchen_rosenfeld`, `meancovs`, `gammacovs`, `fastcorners`
  - Blob detection: `blob_LoG`, `findlocalmaxima`, `findlocalminima`
  - Morphological operations: `dilate`, `erode`, `closing`, `opening`, `tophat`, `bothat`, `morphogradient`, `morpholaplace`, `feature_transform`, `distance_transform`, `convexhull`
  - Connected components: `label_components`, `component_boxes`, `component_lengths`, `component_indices`, `component_subscripts`, `component_centroids`
  - Interpolation: `bilinear_interpolation`

  Test images and phantoms (see also TestImages.jl):

  - `shepp_logan`
7 Likes
6

In the (good) old days, ?MyPackage would simply paste the Readme.md to the REPL. That doesn’t seem to happen anymore, though? Is this the suggested replacement?

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7

With https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/25930 we could have both. I do think it’s useful to have something that reminds experienced but infrequent users of the names of the relevant methods.

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8

I implemented Add README and LICENSE by fredrikekre · Pull Request #68 · JuliaDocs/DocStringExtensions.jl · GitHub as a replacement(ish) of that feature, so you can simply do

"""
$(README)
"""
module MyModule
...
end
3 Likes
9

Nice, so does my package need to depend on DocStringExtensions to do this?

10

Yes, you need a using DocStringExtensions inside the package. I’d like to point out that it is an extremely light dependency; it is pure Julia and has no dependencies of its own. It can also be useful to improve other docstrings in your package.

3 Likes
11

Thanks, that sounds like a great idea.
BTW i’d still think it was great with a function listing the exported functions from a module.

12

I have missed that feature. It displayed the module doc string if present. It was

julia> using HTTP
help?> HTTP
  No documentation found.
  Displaying the README.md for the module instead.  ...

I wonder why it was removed. Of course the best thing about it is there is almost always a README, seldom a module doc string. Although I agree you should normally include one.

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13

I remember thinking that this was a poor idea. Dumping 400 lines of miscellaneous info wasn’t a good experience in the REPL. (And I also remember finding the 400 or so lines of Colors.jl’s README incentive enough to make a new set of Documenter docs…)

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14

https://juliadocs.github.io/DocStringExtensions.jl/latest/#DocStringExtensions.EXPORTS

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15

Yes apparently this use case is covered there

Tab completion can also help completing fields:

julia> import UUIDs

julia> UUIDs.uuid[TAB]
uuid1        uuid4         uuid_version
16

There’s names:

  names(x::Module; all::Bool = false, imported::Bool = false)

Get an array of the names exported by a Module, excluding deprecated names. If all is true, then the list also includes non-exported names defined in the module, deprecated names, and compiler-generated names. If imported is true, then names explicitly imported from other modules are also included.

4 Likes
17

it’s not documented, but tab completion also works for Dict keys

julia> foo=Dict("qwer"=>2, "asdf"=>3)
Dict{String,Int64} with 2 entries:
  "asdf" => 3
  "qwer" => 2

julia> foo["q[TAB]
3 Likes