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pythonpycharmvtkcode-completion

Python Code Completion for C++ Libraries (Using Pycharm, VTK)

I'm trying to get back into coding for some math/physics experimentations and found VTK as a powerful tool using python. So I installed Python(x,y) and Pycharm Community edition. But I cannot get the Code Completion for VTK to work. I know this question has been posted quite a lot of times, but I couldn't find any concrete answer.

Here's what I know so far: In order for Code Completion to work Pycharm constructs Skeletons. (Basically Python files with empty Classes/Methods that match the C++ API and can then be used like any other Python file for code completion.)

If I locate these files they don't appear to be complete and look something like this:

VTK Skeleton

If this is indeed the skeleton (the file is called vtkRenderingPython.py) then shouldn't there be empty function declarations?

The result is that I get code completion for the classnames, but not the functions. For a library this huge that's rather annoying. Is there an easy way to get this working, or is this just a limitation I have to live with? Is there maybe a way to get complete Skeletons and replace the ones I have here? Am I missing the point entirely?

Solution

  • After another couple of hours I tried my luck with the PyDev extension for Eclipse. I didn't think that would work, but to my surprise it did! No settings necessary, it just worked out of the box.

    The only drawback is that inherited methods are not shown in code completion. The base class is shown in the documentation window though so you can get the available functions by creating a temporary object of the base class and scrolling through the code completion there.