[Python-Dev] Namespaces (original) (raw)

Aahz aahz@pythoncraft.com
Sat, 6 Apr 2002 09:28:23 -0500

On Sat, Apr 06, 2002, Fredrik Lundh wrote:

barry wrote:

I'm curious why setting an attribute isn't a name binding operation? Are you binding the object to the attribute name in the object's attribute namespace? Since that maps to a setting in an dict (usually), what /would/ you call it? syntactic sugar? A = 1 binds 1 to the name "A" A.B = 1 calls A.setattr("B", 1) A["B"] = 1 calls A.setitem("B", 1) it's pretty clear that the first form differs from the others, but what's the difference between the second and the third form? or are all three name binding operations?

The way I'm currently thinking of this (thanks to Barry) is that all three are target binding operations. I'm currently leaning toward attributes being names because (like primaries) they go through namespace lookup on reads, but I'm open to counter-arguments.

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