[Python-Dev] PEP 362: 4th edition (original) (raw)

Larry Hastings larry at hastings.org
Fri Jun 15 23:38:03 CEST 2012

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.

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