[Python-Dev] NOARGS_NULL (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Sat Feb 24 08:17:12 CET 2007

Thomas Wouters schrieb:

My only objection (which is a minor one) is with the 'NOARGSNULL' name. Caps don't fit the normal style rules, and 'noargsnull' doesn't make much sense to me. 'unused' strikes me as a clearer name (or 'noargsunused' or 'argsunused' or such.)

The point clearly is that the submitter wants the code to explain what the meaning of the parameter is, and why it is unused. NOARGS_NULL is intended to express that the argument will always be NULL (and thus obviously irrelevant). It's easy to see from the code that the parameter is unused, so it doesn't give much information calling it unused; OTOH it may not be so obvious what information the caller will provide (i.e. whether it's an argument tuple, or the "closure" field).

It should be fine to fix this in 2.5 as well (as long as arguments previously ignored don't suddenly raise exceptions, but it doesn't sound like that's happening at all.)

That change does not change behaviour at all.

Regards, Martin

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