[Python-Dev] Definining properties - a use case for class decorators? (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Tue Oct 18 06:59:18 CEST 2005

On 10/17/05, Steven Bethard <steven.bethard at gmail.com> wrote:

I'm not sure if you'll like it any better, but I combined Michael Urman's suggestion with my late-binding property recipe to get: http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/442418 It solves the name-repetition problem and the late-binding problem (I believe), at the cost of either adding an extra argument to the functions forming the property or confusing the "self" argument a little.

That is probably as good as you can get it if you prefer the nested class over a property call with string arguments. Personally, I find the nested class inheriting from Property a lot more "magical" than the call to property() with string arguments.

I wonder if at some point in the future Python will have to develop a macro syntax so that you can write

Property foo:
    def get(self): return self._foo
    ...etc...

which would somehow translate into code similar to your recipe.

But until then, I prefer the simplicity of

foo = property('get_foo', 'set_foo')

-- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list