Can Python print a function definition?

Question

In JavaScript, one can print out the definition of a function. Is there a way to accomplish this in Python?

(Just playing around in interactive mode, and I wanted to read a module without open(). I was just curious).

Answer 1

If you are importing the function, you can use inspect.getsource:

>>> import re
>>> import inspect
>>> print inspect.getsource(re.compile)
def compile(pattern, flags=0):
    "Compile a regular expression pattern, returning a pattern object."
    return _compile(pattern, flags)

This will work in the interactive prompt, but apparently only on objects that are imported (not objects defined within the interactive prompt). And of course it will only work if Python can find the source code (so not on built-in objects, C libs, .pyc files, etc)