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On 06/15/2012 02:13 PM, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
I'm not sure I understand. The PEP already says signatures are computed  
lazily. Is there an exception for built-in functions?

Right now we have no way to automatically generate signatures for built-in functions.  So, as of current trunk, any such signatures would have to be built by hand.

If we could somehow produce signature information in C, what then?  Two possible approaches suggest themselves:
  1. Pre-generate the signatures and cache them in the \_\_signature\_\_ attribute.
  2. Add a callback, perhaps named \_\_get\_signature\_\_(), which calculates the signature and returns it.

Both approaches have downsides.  The former means generation is not lazy and therefore consumes more memory.  The latter adds a new attribute to builtin functions.

Which is a better approach?  Who knows?  We don't even have the signature information in C yet.  As we all learned from Star Trek VI, the future is an undiscovered country.  So the PEP deliberately makes no ruling here.


/arry