Regarding dir()

Question

Initially I was trying to find dir(re) but realized I had quotes.

Edit for clarity:

Wouldn't "re" be a string? So dir("re") == dir(string)? The output isn't the same. That is essentially what I am wondering.

Edit for comments:

I might misunderstand but doesn't dir return a list of all the functions within the module? Also when I call dir on "re" it gives me a list of functions. No error is returned.

edit2: yes dir. Been switching between a ruby and python project and for some reason I had def on the brain. sorry xD

Answer 1

I think what you need is a clarification on what dir does.

dir is a Python built-in function that does either one of two things, depending on whether an argument is supplied or not:

1. Without an argument, it returns a list of the names in the current scope. These names are represented as strings.

2. With an argument, it returns a list of the attributes and methods that belong to that argument. Once again, it will be a list of strings.

Below is a demonstration of the first action:

>>> num = 1 # Just to demonstrate
>>> dir()
['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__name__', '__package__', 'num']
>>>

And here is a demonstration of the second:

>>> dir(str)
['__add__', '__class__', '__contains__', '__delattr__', '__doc__', '__eq__', '__format__', '__ge__', '__getattribute__', '__getitem__', '__getnewargs__', '__getslice__', '__gt__', '__hash__', '__init__', '__le__', '__len__', '__lt__', '__mod__', '__mul__', '__ne__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__reduce_ex__', '__repr__', '__rmod__', '__rmul__', '__setattr__', '__sizeof__', '__str__', '__subclasshook__', '_formatter_field_name_split', '_formatter_parser', 'capitalize', 'center', 'count', 'decode', 'encode', 'endswith', 'expandtabs', 'find', 'format', 'index', 'isalnum', 'isalpha', 'isdigit', 'islower', 'isspace', 'istitle', 'isupper', 'join', 'ljust', 'lower', 'lstrip', 'partition', 'replace', 'rfind', 'rindex', 'rjust', 'rpartition', 'rsplit', 'rstrip', 'split', 'splitlines', 'startswith', 'strip', 'swapcase', 'title', 'translate', 'upper', 'zfill']
>>>

Moreover, if its argument is a Python module, then dir will list the names contained in that module:

>>> import sys
>>> dir(sys)
['__displayhook__', '__doc__', '__excepthook__', '__name__', '__package__', '__stderr__', '__stdin__', '__stdout__', '_clear_type_cache', '_current_frames', '_getframe', '_mercurial', 'api_version', 'argv', 'builtin_module_names', 'byteorder', 'call_tracing', 'callstats', 'copyright', 'displayhook', 'dllhandle', 'dont_write_bytecode', 'exc_clear', 'exc_info', 'exc_type', 'excepthook', 'exec_prefix', 'executable', 'exit', 'flags', 'float_info', 'float_repr_style', 'getcheckinterval', 'getdefaultencoding', 'getfilesystemencoding', 'getprofile', 'getrecursionlimit',
'getrefcount', 'getsizeof', 'gettrace', 'getwindowsversion', 'hexversion', 'long_info', 'maxint', 'maxsize', 'maxunicode', 'meta_path', 'modules', 'path', 'path_hooks', 'path_importer_cache', 'platform', 'prefix', 'ps1', 'ps2', 'py3kwarning', 'setcheckinterval', 'setprofile', 'setrecursionlimit', 'settrace', 'stderr', 'stdin', 'stdout', 'subversion', 'version', 'version_info',
'warnoptions', 'winver']
>>>

---

Now, you said in your question that the output of dir("re") was not equal to dir(string). There are a few things I would like to say about this:

1. If string is a string literal, as in dir("string"), then it should work:

   >>> dir("re") == dir("string")
   True
   >>> 
   

2. If "re" is actually the re module, then the behavior you are seeing is expected since the module is not a string.

3. If you were expecting dir("re") to list the names contained in the re module, then you are mistaken. You cannot reference the module with a string. Instead, you have to explicitly import it first:

   >>> dir("re")  # The output is the same as doing dir(str)
   ['__add__', '__class__', '__contains__', '__delattr__', '__doc__', '__eq__', '__format__', '__ge__', '__getattribute__', '__getitem__', '__getnewargs__', '__getslice__', '__gt__', '__hash__', '__init__', '__le__', '__len__', '__lt__', '__mod__', '__mul__', '__ne__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__reduce_ex__', '__repr__', '__rmod__', '__rmul__', '__setattr__', '__sizeof__', '__str__', '__subclasshook__', '_formatter_field_name_split', '_formatter_parser', 'capitalize', 'center', 'count', 'decode', 'encode', 'endswith', 'expandtabs', 'find', 'format', 'index', 'isalnum', 'isalpha', 'isdigit', 'islower', 'isspace', 'istitle', 'isupper', 'join', 'ljust', 'lower', 'lstrip', 'partition', 'replace', 'rfind', 'rindex', 'rjust', 'rpartition', 'rsplit', 'rstrip', 'split', 'splitlines', 'startswith', 'strip', 'swapcase', 'title', 'translate', 'upper', 'zfill']
   >>>
   >>> import re
   >>> dir(re) # The output is for the re module, not str
   ['DEBUG', 'DOTALL', 'I', 'IGNORECASE', 'L', 'LOCALE', 'M', 'MULTILINE', 'S', 'Scanner', 'T', 'TEMPLATE', 'U', 'UNICODE', 'VERBOSE', 'X', '_MAXCACHE', '__all__', '__builtins__', '__doc__', '__file__', '__name__', '__package__', '__version__', '_alphanum', '_cache', '_cache_repl', '_compile', '_compile_repl', '_expand', '_pattern_type', '_pickle', '_subx', 'compile', 'copy_reg', 'error', 'escape', 'findall',  'finditer', 'match', 'purge', 'search', 'split', 'sre_compile', 'sre_parse', 'sub', 'subn', 'sys', 'template']
   >>>