Python - inspect - Get full caller name (package.module.function)

caller_name.py

# Public Domain, i.e. feel free to copy/paste
# Considered a hack in Python 2

import inspect

def caller_name(skip=2):
    """Get a name of a caller in the format module.class.method
    
       `skip` specifies how many levels of stack to skip while getting caller
       name. skip=1 means "who calls me", skip=2 "who calls my caller" etc.
       
       An empty string is returned if skipped levels exceed stack height
    """
    stack = inspect.stack()
    start = 0 + skip
    if len(stack) < start + 1:
      return ''
    parentframe = stack[start][0]    
    
    name = []
    module = inspect.getmodule(parentframe)
    # `modname` can be None when frame is executed directly in console
    # TODO(techtonik): consider using __main__
    if module:
        name.append(module.__name__)
    # detect classname
    if 'self' in parentframe.f_locals:
        # I don't know any way to detect call from the object method
        # XXX: there seems to be no way to detect static method call - it will
        #      be just a function call
        name.append(parentframe.f_locals['self'].__class__.__name__)
    codename = parentframe.f_code.co_name
    if codename != '<module>':  # top level usually
        name.append( codename ) # function or a method
    del parentframe
    return ".".join(name)

This is exactly why I was overjoyed when http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3155/ appeared. Python 3.3+ only, though.

Otherwise the only sure way to figure out the class name I can think of would be using parentframe.f_code.co_filename and co_firstlineno, then parsing the source file (if it's available) and seeing what classes where defined in which code lines.

__qname__ sounds better to me, but it still it doesn't solve the problem of orientation in the frame completely. For example, what is the convention to identify the top level? I understand that this top level differs depending on how the code is called - usual 'python module.py', console, exec() - what else is possible? What is the difference? Why it should be different? These questions I don't have answers for now.

Very useful, thank you.

Thanks!

👏 thanks so much for this!