Python User Functions?

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1

Is it possible to create and then reference your own “user functions” in python, within Grist? I am finding myself doing the same things in various tables and columns, and it would be great to centralize this sort of logic to allow reusability and reduce redundant/repetitive code.

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As far as I know, Grist doesn’t provide a “proper” way of doing this (unfortunately!). What you can do, however, is to have a separate table to contain your reusable functions, say, “Lib”, and reference that from wherever you need your functions.

This table needs to have formula columns which essentially just return a function object (or even an entire class with methods), like this:

class AmazingFunctions:
   def do_something_useful(argument, other_argument):
      # do whatever
      return 1337

return AmazingFunctions

Place this in a formula column named, e.g. “fn”, and then in your other tables, you can do:

# Nota bene: lookupOne() without any arguments will just return the first record.
# For our purposes, the Lib table will consist entirely of formula columns, so we don't actually need it to contain more than one record anyway.
Lib.lookupOne().fn.do_something_useful("my first argument", "my other argument")

… and it will return 1337.

That’s how I do it for more elaborate projects. Come to think of it, I might release some of my often used “Lib” functions if I get some time… Anyway, hope it helps!

Shoutout to @dmitry-grist and the rest of the team: It would be absolutely amazing if Grist provided a central “reusable user code repository” that could be more easily accessed from formulas. Having just an internal table, say _grist_globalUserCode, might work. A shortcut could be provided for formulas, where you’d simply write something like “Code.your_fn_name_goes_here” and have that translate to “_grist_globalUserCode.lookupOne().your_fn_name_goes_here”.
Also, keep up the great work! :slight_smile:

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3

This is a fantastic solution!

For the benefit of others finding this thread, I created a sample doc showing this functionality:
https://docs.getgrist.com/ttbwDBreE9hj/User-Code-SHARED/p/1

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4

… and also +1 for having this built-in, which would be a bit more elegant.

I could foresee a “User Functions” or “User Code” area in the sidebar or Settings, perhaps even with Access Rules support so that you can limit viewing vs editing of the code.

5

Nice, good idea! I’ll post some of my custom functions over in the showcase in a minute, feel free to add those to your document.

1 Like
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FYI, someone started working on a proper way of doing this here: Add ability to add custom code in documents by XoMEX · Pull Request #1259 · gristlabs/grist-core · GitHub

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Thanks for the heads-up! I’ll definitely take a look. It’s great to see this seems to be gaining some traction.