All 15 Debugging & Profiling questions
More in Debugging & Profiling
How do you use the built-in pdb debugger to pause execution at a specific line? How do you use the traceback module to capture and format a full exception traceback as a string, useful for logging? How do you use the timeit module to accurately measure a small code snippet's execution time? How do you use cProfile to identify which functions are consuming the most time in a larger program? How do assert statements work for debugging, and why should they NOT be relied upon for production input validation? How do you use Python's built-in 'warnings' module to surface deprecated or risky code paths during debugging? How would you use the 'faulthandler' module to diagnose a program that crashes with a segmentation fault, typically from a C extension? How do you use memory_profiler (or tracemalloc from the standard library) to identify a memory leak's source in a Python application? How would you use the 'logging' module's exception logging (logger.exception()) INSIDE an except block to automatically capture the full traceback? How do you use pdb's post-mortem debugging mode to inspect a program's state exactly at the point where an unhandled exception occurred?
Advertisement
Back to results for “Debugging”
Python › Debugging & Profiling

How do you use print statements effectively for debugging, including showing variable names alongside values?

Beginner

Answer

Use an f-string with the '=' specifier (Python 3.8+) to automatically print both the variable's NAME and its value in one concise expression, avoiding the tedium of manually typing 'print(f"variable_name: {variable_name}")'.
count = 42
name = "Sam"
print(f"{count=}, {name=}")  # "count=42, name='Sam'" -- auto-includes the variable name
Real-world example Quickly checking a variable's current value and type during ad-hoc debugging without writing a full debug statement.

Common follow-ups: Why is print-based debugging generally considered less efficient than using a proper debugger for complex bugs?

Functions & Scope
All 15 Debugging & Profiling questions