note: this was just an experiment, and is (obviously) abandoned.

zodiac makes monkeypatching really easy in python. It lets you weave parts of the original module with a patch module that you write. It was written for python 3, but also works in 2.7.

let's say you are monkeypatching socket. You can write a patch module, mysocket.py:

import socket as _real

class socket(_real.socket):
	def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
		print("passthrough!")
		super().__init__()

def something_new():
	print("new function")

This lets you create a patched module based on the original module, with only the parts you want overridden.

>>> from zodiac import build_patch
>>> mysocket = build_patch('socket', 'mysocket')
>>>	s = mysocket.socket()
passthrough!
>>> s
<mysocket.socket object, fd=3, family=2, type=1, proto=0>

Other parts of the original module will also use your patch!

>>> conn = mysocket.create_connection(('python.org', 9599))
passthrough!

Patching globally is simple.

>>> from zodiac import monkeypatch
>>> monkeypatch('socket', 'mysocket')
>>> import socket
>>> s = socket.socket()
passthrough!
>>> socket.something_new()
new function

Check out the tests for more examples.

If you were to try monkeypatching without zodiac, you might do something like this:

import socket as _real
create_connection = _real.create_connection #and so on

class socket(_real.socket):
	def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
		print("passthrough!")
		super().__init__()

But this breaks, because create_connection uses the socket class that was around when it was defined, and not ours:

>>> import mysocket as socket
>>> conn = mysocket.create_connection(('python.org', 9599))
>>> #hrm, no passthrough?

The solution (if you're not using zodiac) is to copy create_connection code wholesale from the system module. By redefining it, it uses our socket:

import socket as _real

class socket(_real.socket):
	def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
		print("passthrough!")
		super().__init__()

def create_connection(...):
	#copy pasta of python socket.create_connection code

This works, but has obvious problems. You're tied to the original code, and maintaining between different versions of system code is a nightmare.

zodiac "rebases" those functions into the namespace of the new module, which is populated with whatever you overrode in your patch. So your patches can be clean and concise.

zodiac requires python 2.7 or higher. Clone, cd into the directory, and then

python setup.py install