echo "replacement function" | symbex old_function --replace

[simonw]

Idea would be to support this:

symbex test_filters | llm -m 4 "Add comments to this" | symbex --replace test_filters

Inspired by: https://mastodon.social/@webology/110628240726665098

[simonw]

Partial prototype:

```diff
diff --git a/symbex/cli.py b/symbex/cli.py
index 65d673c..d08ec75 100644
--- a/symbex/cli.py
+++ b/symbex/cli.py
@@ -137,6 +137,11 @@ from .lib import (
     is_flag=True,
     help="Filter to exclude any __init__ methods",
 )
+@click.option(
+    "--replace",
+    is_flag=True,
+    help="Replace a single matching symbol with text from stdin"
+)
 def cli(
     symbols,
     files,
@@ -161,6 +166,7 @@ def cli(
     partially_typed,
     fully_typed,
     no_init,
+    replace,
 ):
     """
     Find symbols in Python code and print the code for them.
@@ -263,6 +269,9 @@ def cli(
         ctx = click.get_current_context()
         click.echo(ctx.get_help())
         ctx.exit()
+
+    if replace and signatures:
+        raise click.ClickException("--replace cannot be used with --signatures")
     # Default to '*' if --signatures or filters are provided without symbols
     if (
         any(
@@ -354,6 +363,7 @@ def cli(
 
     pwd = pathlib.Path(".").resolve()
     num_matches = 0
+    replace_matches = []
     for file in iterate_files():
         try:
             code = read_file(file)
@@ -380,6 +390,9 @@ def cli(
                 # else print absolute path
                 path = file.resolve()
             snippet, line_no = code_for_node(code, node, class_name, signatures, docs)
+            if replace:
+                replace_matches.append((snippet, line_no))
+                continue
             if not no_file:
                 bits = ["# File:", path]
                 if class_name:
@@ -401,6 +414,11 @@ def cli(
     if count:
         click.echo(num_matches)
 
+    if replace:
+        # Only works if we got a single match
+        if len(replace_matches) != 1:
+            raise click.ClickException("--replace only works with a single match, got {}".format(len(replace_matches)))
+        click.echo(repr(replace_matches))
 
 def is_subpath(path: pathlib.Path, parent: pathlib.Path) -> bool:
     try:

Hard bit is figuring out how to cleanly replace just the first matching instance in the file.

[simonw]

Might work to just do text.replace(old_code, new_code) seeing as the snippet should be the exact bytes from the file. Could show a "could not apply patch" error otherwise.

[simonw]

I ran this against the prototype:

symbex is_subpath -n | llm -m 4 --system 'Add comments to every line' | symbex is_subpath --replace

And got this (output of git diff):

diff --git a/symbex/cli.py b/symbex/cli.py
index 9510627..87351af 100644
--- a/symbex/cli.py
+++ b/symbex/cli.py
@@ -441,8 +441,13 @@ def cli(
 
 
 def is_subpath(path: pathlib.Path, parent: pathlib.Path) -> bool:
+    # Try to find the relative path of the current path to the parent path
     try:
+        # If this operation is successful, it means that 'path' is a sub-path of 'parent'
         path.relative_to(parent)
+        # Return True if the 'path' is a sub-directory of 'parent'
         return True
+    # If the operation fails, it raises a ValueError
     except ValueError:
+        # Catch the ValueError and return False, since 'path' is now not a sub-directory of 'parent'
         return False

[jefftriplett]

I assume the https://github.com/simonw/symbex/tree/replace branch is the best place to git pull and test too?

[simonw]

Yes, pip install https://github.com/simonw/symbex/archive/refs/heads/replace.zip should do it.

[simonw]

Docs: https://github.com/simonw/symbex/blob/316a5e74c17e700d1551f905252be3eeb58bedbe/README.md#replacing-a-matched-symbol