[Python-Dev] Questions about '@' in pep 318 (original) (raw)

Skip Montanaro skip at pobox.com
Fri Aug 6 20:58:22 CEST 2004 

Martin> In Python, things at the same indentation level all belong
Martin> together.

I think the point is that the collection of @-decorators and the immediately following function definition (which can be separated from each other by a lot of white space or comments, btw) effectively form a single function definition. I don't believe there are any other syntactic constructs in Python where the keyword introducing the construct ("def" in this case) doesn't occur at the beginning of the construct.

Hmmm... Now that I think about it, might you "lose" an @ in a comment block since # and @ have more-or-less the same density? | might not suffer from that sort of confusion.

# description of what decorator1 does
# description of what decorator1 does
# description of what decorator1 does
@ decorator1
# description of what decorator2 does
# description of what decorator2 does
# description of what decorator2 does
@ decorator2
# description of what func does
# description of what func does
# description of what func does
def func(...):
    pass

vs. 

# description of what decorator1 does
# description of what decorator1 does
# description of what decorator1 does
| decorator1
# description of what decorator2 does
# description of what decorator2 does
# description of what decorator2 does
| decorator2
# description of what func does
# description of what func does
# description of what func does
def func(...):
    pass

Eh, maybe not. Small point in any case, I'm sure.

Skip

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