Configuration

Note

This page is currently under construction!

Providing Your Own Configuration Settings

While PythonTA comes with its own default configuration settings, you can provide either a dict or the file name of the config file containing the configuration options you want to override. PythonTA will use its default options for all other options.

When providing your own configuration settings as a file, you just need to provide a minimal configuration file that contains only the configuration options you wish to override. The configuration file must be in the TOML file format.

Sample Usage

import python_ta

options = {
    'pyta-number-of-messages': 10,
    'max-line-length': 100,
    ...,
}

# Using config dict
python_ta.check_all(..., config=options)

# Using config file
# Assume there is a config file `config/.pylintrc`
python_ta.check_all(..., config='config/.pylintrc')

# config/.pylintrc
[CUSTOM PYTA OPTIONS]
pyta-number-of-messages = 10

[FORMAT]
max-line-length = 100

...

Autoloading PythonTA default config

The load_default_config option of check_errors and check_all can be used to specify whether to automatically load the PythonTA default config. By default, PythonTA will automatically load the default config.

When disabled, it will still load PythonTA’s custom options, but will no longer override pylint’s default options. As such, it will use pylint’s default options.

import python_ta

python_ta.check_all(..., load_default_config=False)

Allowing ‘pylint:’ Comments

PythonTA allows you to choose whether you want to locally disable checks by using ‘pylint:’ in a comment, i.e. it lets you choose whether or not you want to allow comments that begin with ‘pylint:’. The default value for this option is False, i.e. PythonTA by default would not allow you to use ‘pylint:’ in a comment.

import python_ta

python_ta.check_all(..., config={"allow-pylint-comments": True})

Custom Error Messages

By default, PythonTA overwrites some of pylint’s error messages with its own to make them more beginner-friendly. These messages are specified in config/messages_config.toml in the source code. You can prevent this by setting the use-pyta-error-messages option to False.

import python_ta
python_ta.check_all(config={
    "use-pyta-error-messages": False
})

PythonTA also allows for pylint error messages to be overridden with custom user messages. The user can provide their own messages configuration file by specifying messages-config-path in their .pylintrc file. These messages have priority over both pylint’s and PythonTA’s messages and aren’t affected by use-pyta-error-messages.

Reporters

PythonTA offers four different types of reporters used to display the results of its checks to the user.

python_ta.reporters.PlainReporter: outputs report in plain text.
python_ta.reporters.ColorReporter: outputs a colourized report (can only be used in the terminal/Python shell)
python_ta.reporters.HTMLReporter: outputs report in HTML format.
python_ta.reporters.JSONReporter: outputs a JSON representation of the messages reported

The default reporter is HTMLReporter. This is controlled by the output-format configuration option, which you can set in a call to python_ta.check_all or in your .pylintrc file.

import python_ta
python_ta.check_all(..., config={'output-format': 'python_ta.reporters.PlainReporter'})

[REPORTS]
output-format = python_ta.reporters.PlainReporter

Report output location

By default, the PlainReporter, ColorReporter, and JSONReporter print their reports to the screen, and the HTMLReporter opens a web browser to display the report. You can instead configure PythonTA to save the reports to a file using the output argument to check_all:

import python_ta
python_ta.check_all(..., output='pyta_output.txt')

This options is compatible with all of PythonTA’s reporter types, but we do not recommend its use with ColorReporter, as this reporter uses terminal-specific characters to colourize text displayed on your screen.

Forbidden Imports

By default, PythonTA has a list of modules that are allowed to be imported. You can specify any additional modules using the extra-imports configuration option, which you can set in a call to python_ta.check_all or in a configuration file.

import python_ta
python_ta.check_all(..., config={'extra-imports': ["math", "tkinter"]})

[FORBIDDEN IMPORT]
extra-imports = math, tkinter