Pyfactor

Welcome to the documentation of Pyfactor - a refactoring tool that visualises Python source files, modules and importable packages as a graph of dependencies between Python constructs like variables, functions and classes.

$ pyfactor --help
$ pyfactor script.py
$ pyfactor script.py --skip-external --view

See our PyPI page for installation instructions and package information. If you’ve found a bug or would like to propose a feature, please submit an issue on GitHub.

For a glimpse into what is possible, here’s a graph of our parsing module:

More examples can be found in our Gallery.

Pyfactor is fundamentally a command line tool. However, the functionality is also exposed for use in code. See Reference for CLI help and Guide for configuration tips.

Motivation

Pyfactor exists to make refactoring long scripts easier and understanding large code bases quicker. Seeing a graph makes it possible to easily discover structure in the code that is harder to grasp when simply reading the file, especially for those that are not intimately familiar with the code. For example, such a graph could reveal collections of definitions or connection hubs that could be easily extracted to sub-modules, or give insight into the code’s complexity.

Still, simply moving definitions around into several files is not the be-all end-all of refactoring and code style. It is up to the user to make decisions, but Pyfactor is here to help!