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Glite Dictionary
🧠 To self-reflect 💻 To examine code
to introspect

to introspect

8.0
To look inside a program or object while it runs to find parts and information about what it can do
  • verb
  • /ˌɪntrəˈspɛkt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : introspectar
  • In Python, you can introspect an object's attributes to see what properties it contains.

The type hints can be introspected at runtime.

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Examples

  • What looks like the top-level scope is actually contained inside a function scope, and function scopes cannot be introspected.

    Academic text (2011)

  • JavaScript provides a way to introspect global state, but Node.js programs that declare variables do not use global state per se.

    Academic text (2011)

  • So how do you introspect the sort of analyze the system at a system scale versus at the individual scale?

    Lex Fridman

  • The type hints can be introspected at runtime.

    Lex Fridman

  • You can easily introspect the class's methods using the built-in reflection tools provided by the framework.

  • To debug your code, it helps to introspect the program's state during execution to find any issues.

Synonyms

to analyze
vsto introspect
  • US
675 3.2

To study something carefully to understand it better

focuses on inspecting program internals and metadata at runtime

How Thorough

to probe
  • Literature
35 5.1
to introspect
  • Specialized
8.0
to examine
868 2.5
to inspect
202 2.5
peek
162 2.1

Surface Forms

introspect infinitive
introspected past
introspected past participle
introspecting present participle
introspects third person singular

Morphology

introspect = intro + spect

Same morphological composition (intro- + spect) applied in a technical context: 'look into' the internal state, so the derivation is transparent.

Etymology

Introspect comes from the parts intro- meaning 'inward' and -spect meaning 'to look', just like in inspect. In computing, to introspect is to 'look inside' a program or object to find its parts and details, which is why the word fits this technical meaning.