[Python-3000] PEP 3138- String representation in Python 3000 (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Mon May 19 23:15:45 CEST 2008

outputto = compressorsname

Your example seems to indicate a model->sequence operation, that I would call 'encode'. Now the question becomes, given 'f', what makes more sense: (a) y = x.transform(f) (b) y = x.encode(f) (c) y = f(x) What do you expect the function signature of 'outputto' to be?

People brought that up in the context of stacking streams. So output_to would have a stream interface, so you would say

(d) output_to.write(x)

(and yes, I do recognize that the ultimate receiver of the output, e.g. the socket or such, is missing in my API)

Is it callable? Is it something that is going to be a stream wrapper, that has .read() and .write()?

That's what I meant it to be.

I'm not quite sure why you are asking these questions.

In this case using .transform() would seem to be a good fit because there is no model, but 'obj' suffers from being directionless, so it becomes this...

ciph = plain.transform(obj.encrypt) ...which isn't substantially clearer than... ciph = obj.encrypt(plain)

It isn't substantially clearer, and therefore it is a good fit???

Parametric transformations don't bother me, but that would be an indication that there's a lot more going on, and perhaps there are better (and pre-existing) labels for these functions.

If you are saying that we should call it .encrypt, not .transform: I completely agree.

Regards, Martin

More information about the Python-3000 mailing list