[Python-Dev] Improved super/autosuper (original) (raw)

Delaney, Timothy C (Timothy) tdelaney at avaya.com
Tue Jul 6 02:25:18 CEST 2004

The current super implementation was always (as I understood it) meant to be an interim solution until a better syntax could be determined. I've submitted a recipe to the Cookbook for an improved super/autosuper which allows using syntax like:

class A (autosuper):

    def __init__ (self, a, b):
        print 'A.__init__'
        print a, b
        self.super(a, b)

    def test (self, a, b):
        print 'A.test'
        print a, b
        self.super(a, b)

class B (A):

    def __init__ (self):
        print 'B.__init__'
        self.super(1, 2)
        self.super.test(3, 4)

B()

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/286195

It's currently got some fairly serious inefficiencies in it, but it shows that it is viable to produce a simpler super that doesn't require hardcoding the class. It's also backwards-compatible.

Would there be any interest in doing further work on this with the aim of getting it into the core?

BTW, I've made a couple of design choices which I'm not sure about. Specifically, I've made self.super not throw an AttributeError when no base class has the attribute - this simplifies dealing with mixin classes (since you can just blindly put the self.super call in). I've included a second property super_raise for when you want the exception. Most of my usage works better without the exception (since everything resolves back to object, and it doesn't have many methods ...). But I'd like other people's opinion on which is preferable.

Cheers.

Tim Delaney

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