Compile a code snippet while caching its contents.

gistfile1.py

import hashlib
import linecache
import time
import types

def code_name(code):
    """ Compute a (probably) unique name for code for caching.
    """
    hash_digest = hashlib.md5(code).hexdigest()
    return '<code %s>' % hash_digest

class compile_and_cache_code(code):
    """ Compile some code while caching its contents such that the inspect module can find it later.
    """
    code += '\n'
    name = code_name(code)
    code_obj = compile(code, name, 'exec')
    linecache.cache[name] = (len(code), time.time(), [line+'\n' for line in code.splitlines()], name)
    return code_obj

It's better to pass None instead of time.time(). Since Python 2.5 (!) that ensures the line will never be removed from the cache (which is needed since it can't be re-fetched from a file).

IPython used to use a horrible monkeypatch to avoid this, when the whole thing was not necessary at all.