Don't forget about help() and vars()

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 13:39:53 -0000

While working on my plant-tracker, I wanted to learn more about what was available in my grow sensors... Good thing they did documentation.

Using help(Moisture). I learned that I was looking at data backwards (Lower moisture settings are better, not higher).

Using vars I was able to learn about all the data that I had in my

>>> from grow.moisture import Moisture
>>> vars(Moisture(1))
  {
    '_gpio_pin': 23,
    '_count': 0,
    '_reading': 0,
    '_history': [],
    '_history_length': 200,
    '_last_pulse': 1751564749.6594245,
    '_new_data': False,
    '_wet_point': 0.7,
    '_dry_point': 27.6,
    '_time_last_reading': 1751564749.6594367,
    '_time_start': 1751564749.6804533,
  }

I saw _new_data': False and that pushed me to check help again and I saw there was an active parameter.

This allowed me to update my plant tracker code to work with devices that would only collect sensor data from sensors that are active. That means if remove a sensor (often to water a plant) I don't get misleading 0 data points anymore.

This is just a reminder that Python code is examinable. It's also a reminder that you should write great doc strings (that said don't look at the functions in db_store).