Skip to content

Python Code Reviews

Style Guide

Developers should follow the PEP8 style guide with type hints. The use of type hints throughout paired with linting and type hint checking avoids common errors that are tricky to debug.

Projects should check Python code with automated tools.

Linting should be added to build validation, and both linting and code formatting can be added to your pre-commit hooks and VS Code.

Code Analysis / Linting

The 2 most popular python linters are Pylint and Flake8. Both check adherence to PEP8 but vary a bit in what other rules they check. In general Pylint tends to be a bit more stringent and give more false positives but both are good options for linting python code.

Both Pylint and Flake8 can be configured in VS Code using the VS Code python extension.

Flake8

Flake8 is a simple and fast wrapper around Pyflakes (for detecting coding errors) and pycodestyle (for pep8).

Install Flake8

pip install flake8

Add an extension for the pydocstyle (for doc strings) tool to flake8.

pip install flake8-docstrings

Add an extension for pep8-naming (for naming conventions in pep8) tool to flake8.

pip install pep8-naming

Run Flake8

flake8 .    # lint the whole project

Pylint

Install Pylint

pip install pylint

Run Pylint

pylint src  # lint the source directory

Automatic Code Formatting

Black

Black is an unapologetic code formatting tool. It removes all need from pycodestyle nagging about formatting, so the team can focus on content vs style. It's not possible to configure black for your own style needs.

pip install black

Format python code

black [file/folder]

Autopep8

Autopep8 is more lenient and allows more configuration if you want less stringent formatting.

pip install autopep8

Format python code

autopep8 [file/folder] --in-place

yapf

yapf Yet Another Python Formatter is a python formatter from Google based on ideas from gofmt. This is also more configurable, and a good option for automatic code formatting.

pip install yapf

Format python code

yapf [file/folder] --in-place

VS Code Extensions

Python

The Python language extension is the base extension you should have installed for python development with VS Code. It enables intellisense, debugging, linting (with the above linters), testing with pytest or unittest, and code formatting with the formatters mentioned above.

Pyright

The Pyright extension augments VS Code with static type checking when you use type hints

def add(first_value: int, second_value: int) -> int:
    return first_value + second_value

Build validation

To automate linting with flake8 and testing with pytest in Azure Devops you can add the following snippet to you azure-pipelines.yaml file.

trigger:
  branches:
    include:
    - develop
    - master
  paths:
    include:
    - src/*

pool:
  vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'

jobs:
- job: LintAndTest
  displayName: Lint and Test

  steps:

  - checkout: self
    lfs: true

  - task: UsePythonVersion@0
    displayName: 'Set Python version to 3.6'
    inputs:
      versionSpec: '3.6'

  - script: pip3 install --user -r requirements.txt
    displayName: 'Install dependencies'

  - script: |
      # Install Flake8
      pip3 install --user flake8
      # Install PyTest
      pip3 install --user pytest
    displayName: 'Install Flake8 and PyTest'

  - script: |
      python3 -m flake8
    displayName: 'Run Flake8 linter'

  - script: |
      # Run PyTest tester
      python3 -m pytest --junitxml=./test-results.xml
    displayName: 'Run PyTest Tester'

  - task: PublishTestResults@2
    displayName: 'Publish PyTest results'
    condition: succeededOrFailed()
    inputs:
      testResultsFiles: '**/test-*.xml'
      testRunTitle: 'Publish test results for Python $(python.version)'

To perform a PR validation on GitHub you can use a similar YAML configuration with GitHub Actions

Pre-commit hooks

Pre-commit hooks allow you to format and lint code locally before submitting the pull request.

Adding pre-commit hooks for your python repository is easy using the pre-commit package

  1. Install pre-commit and add to the requirements.txt

    pip install pre-commit

  2. Add a .pre-commit-config.yaml file in the root of the repository, with the desired pre-commit actions

    repos:
-   repo: https://github.com/ambv/black
    rev: stable
    hooks:
    - id: black
    language_version: python3.6
-   repo: https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit-hooks
    rev: v1.2.3
    hooks:
    - id: flake8

  3. Each individual developer that wants to set up pre-commit hooks can then run

    pre-commit install

At the next attempted commit any lint failures will block the commit.

Note: Installing pre-commit hooks is voluntary and done by each developer individually. Thus, it's not a replacement for build validation on the server

Code Review Checklist

In addition to the Code Review Checklist you should also look for these python specific code review items

  • Are all new packages used included in requirements.txt
  • Does the code pass all lint checks?
  • Do functions use type hints, and are there any type hint errors?
  • Is the code readable and using pythonic constructs wherever possible.
Last update: April 24, 2023