Building an environment to comply with the Python coding standard (PEP8) with Eclipse + PyDev

I want to be PEP8 compliant when coding Python in Eclipse (with as little effort as possible). Shows how to enable automatic checking of PEP8 and automatic conversion to PEP8 in Eclipse + PyDev.

What is PyDev

Eclipse plugin for Python.

http://www.pydev.org/index.html

PyDev is a Python IDE for Eclipse, which may be used in Python, Jython and IronPython development.

It comes with many goodies such as:

• Django integration
• Code completion
• Code completion with auto import
• Type hinting
• Code analysis
• Go to definition
• Refactoring
• Debugger
• Remote debugger
• Find Referrers in Debugger
• Tokens browser
• Interactive console
• Unittest integration
• Code coverage
• Find References (Ctrl+Shift+G)
• and many others:

How to install in Eclipse

http://www.pydev.org/manual_101_install.html It is organized in an easy-to-understand manner with screenshots.

What is PEP8

Python coding conventions. See below for details.

• PEP 0008 -- Style Guide for Python Code | Python.org
• English -Introduction — pep8-ja 1.0 documentation --Japanese

PEP8 compliance check in Eclipse + PyDev

PyDev comes standard with pep8 and autopep8. With these two, PEP8 compliance check and automatic conversion to PEP8 can be performed.

pep8 A tool that checks for PEP8 compliance and outputs the violations. It can be used alone as a command line tool.

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pep8

pep8 - Python style guide checker

pep8 is a tool to check your Python code against some of the style conventions in PEP 8.

autopep8 A tool that converts source code into a PEP8 compliant format. Easy to comply with PEP8. It can be used alone as a command line tool.

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/autopep8Use

A tool that automatically formats Python code to conform to the PEP 8 style guide

PyDev settings

Enable pep8

Window -> Preferences -> PyDev -> Editor -> Code Analysis so Check Do code analysis? On the ʻOptions` tab.

Check other than Don't run on the pep8.py tab.

Enable autopep8

Window -> Preferences -> PyDev -> Editor -> Code Style -> Code Formatter so ʻCheck Use autopep8.py for code formatting?`.

Setting to automatically execute autopep8 when saving

Window -> Preferences -> PyDev -> Editor -> Save Actions so ʻCheck Auto-format editor contents before saving?`.

With this setting, even if you are not coding with PEP8 in mind When saving, autopep8 works and makes the code PEP8 compliant.

Points to note

Just running autopep8 does not make the code fully PEP8 compliant. However, it's mostly compliant, so it's easier than fixing everything manually. After running autopep8, a warning will be issued with pep8, so fix it manually.

bonus

Sort by import

Window -> Preferences -> PyDev -> Editor -> Save Actions of Sort imports on save? If you check the box, the import modules will be sorted in alphabetical order when saving. This is also set because it is troublesome to do it manually.