[Python-Dev] Set the namespace free! (original) (raw)

Bartosz Tarnowski bartosz-tarnowski at zlotniki.pl
Thu Jul 22 16:04:00 CEST 2010

Hello, guys.

Python has more and more reserved words over time. It becomes quite annoying, since you can not use variables and attributes of such names. Suppose I want to make an XML parser that reads a document and returns an object with attributes corresponding to XML element attributes:

elem = parse_xml("") print elem.param boo

What should I do then, when the attribute is a reserver word? I could use trailing underscore, but this is quite ugly and introduces ambiguity.

elem = parse_xml("") print elem.for_ #????? elem = parse_xml("") print elem.for__ #?????

My proposal: let's make a syntax change.

Let all reserved words be preceded with some symbol, i.e. "!" (exclamation mark). This goes also for standard library global identifiers.

!for boo in foo: !if boo is !None: !print(hoo) !else: !return !sorted(woo)

This would allow the user to declare any identifier with any name:

for = with(return) + try

What do you think of it? It is a major change, but I think Python needs it.

-- haael

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