[Python-Dev] Call for defense of @decorators (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Thu Aug 5 21:07:55 CEST 2004

Gustavo Niemeyer wrote:

Is special syntax in the language really required in this case, considering you're already doing something "fairly magic" anyways?

The syntax is not special for the specific application (Objective-C), but special for a class of applications (modifications of/annotations to the subsequent function).

What is objc.signature() doing?

I'm only guessing here: it declares an Objective-C signature (i.e. a type) of the function. This is probably necessary for thunking.

I can't see a way to do that in a comprehensible way without a decorator. It applies to the function, and it probably needs to wrap the function. So without a special syntax, it would have to go after the function. This is counter-intuitive, as the Objective-C signature has to correspond (I guess) with the Python signature, so it is desirable that they are closely together.

It might be possible to put that annotation into the doc string, but that would be abusing doc strings, and might be more error-prone.

Regards, Martin

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