How can I extract keywords from a Python format string?

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You can use the string.Formatter() class to parse out the fields in a string, with the Formatter.parse() method:

from string import Formatter

fieldnames = [fname for _, fname, _, _ in Formatter().parse(yourstring) if fname]

Demo:

>>> from string import Formatter
>>> yourstring = "path/to/{self.category}/{self.name}"
>>> [fname for _, fname, _, _ in Formatter().parse(yourstring) if fname]
['self.category', 'self.name']
>>> yourstring = "non-keyword {keyword1} {{escaped brackets}} {} {keyword2}"
>>> [fname for _, fname, _, _ in Formatter().parse(yourstring) if fname]
['keyword1', 'keyword2']

You can parse those field names further; for that you can use the str._formatter_field_name_split() method (Python 2) / _string.formatter_field_name_split() function (Python 3) (this internal implementation detail is not otherwise exposed; Formatter.get_field() uses it internally). This function returns the first part of the name, the one that’d be looked up on in the arguments passed to str.format(), plus a generator for the rest of the field.

The generator yields (is_attribute, name) tuples; is_attribute is true if the next name is to be treated as an attribute, false if it is an item to look up with obj[name]:

try:
    # Python 3
    from _string import formatter_field_name_split
except ImportError:
    formatter_field_name_split = str._formatter_field_name_split
from string import Formatter

field_references = {formatter_field_name_split(fname)[0]
 for _, fname, _, _ in Formatter().parse(yourstring) if fname}

Demo:

>>> from string import Formatter
>>> from _string import formatter_field_name_split
>>> yourstring = "path/to/{self.category}/{self.name}"
>>> {formatter_field_name_split(fname)[0]
...  for _, fname, _, _ in Formatter().parse(yourstring) if fname}
{'self'}

Take into account that this function is part of the internal implementation details of the Formatter() class and can be changed or removed from Python without notice, and may not even be available in other Python implementations.

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