Tipper 0.1

Tipper is a small Python utility for dumping stack tracebacks of running Python processes.

Included is a module that, when imported, installs a signal handler for SIGUSR1. Running kill -SIGUSR1 [pid] will cause the process to dump the current stack trace of each thread to $TMPDIR/tipper-[unix timestamp]-[parent pid]-[pid].log.

Tipper can also be used as Django application, though it has no dependencies on Django itself.

Python 2.5 or newer is required. Python 3.x is also supported.

Usage:

To take Tipper for a test drive, first install Tipper:

pip install tipper

Set up a Python process to inspect:

cat > test.py sys.stdout.write('%s\n' % os.getpid())
> while True:
> time.sleep(1)
> EOF
$ python test.py
945

And send SIGUSR1 to it:

kill -SIGUSR1 945

You should end up with a file in $TMPDIR that looks like the following:

 cat "$TMPDIR/tipper-1292830152.19-681-945.log"
Date: 2010-12-20 18:29:12.192733
Parent process ID: 681
Process ID: 945

Traceback (thread 140048470763264):

 File "test.py", line 4, in < module >
 time.sleep(1)

 Arguments: < module >()
 Local variables:

 {'__builtins__': < module '__builtin__' (built-in) >,
 '__doc__': None,
 '__file__': 'test.py',
 '__name__': '__main__',
 '__package__': None,
 'os': < module 'os' from '/usr/lib/python2.6/os.pyc' >,
 'sys': < module 'sys' (built-in) >,
 'time': < module 'time' (built-in) >,
 'tipper': < module 'tipper' from '/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/tipper/__init__.py' >}

To get a briefer overview of the log, you can use grep:

grep -v '^ \|^$' "$TMPDIR/tipper-1292830152.19-681-945.log"
Date: 2010-12-20 18:29:12.192733
Parent process ID: 681
Process ID: 945
Traceback (thread 140048470763264):
 File "test.py", line 4, in < module >
 time.sleep(1)


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Requirements:

· Python