[Python-Dev] PEP 557: Data Classes (original) (raw)

Barry Warsaw barry at python.org
Mon Sep 11 18:00:05 EDT 2017

On Sep 10, 2017, at 20:08, Nathaniel Smith <njs at pobox.com> wrote:

I've sometimes wished that attrs let me control whether it generated equality methods (eq/ne/hash) separately from ordering methods (lt/gt/...). Maybe the cmp= argument should take an enum with options none/equality-only/full?

I have had use cases where I needed equality comparisons but not ordered comparisons, so I’m in favor of the option to split them. (atm, I can’t bring up a specific case, but it’s not uncommon.)

Given that you only want to support the three states that Nathaniel describes, I think an enum makes the most sense, and it certainly would read well. I.e. there’s no sense in supporting the ordered comparisons and not equality, so that’s not a state that needs to be represented.

I’d make one other suggestion here: please let’s not call the keyword cmp. That’s reminiscent of Python 2’s cmp built-in, which of course doesn’t exist in Python 3. Using cmp is just an unnecessarily obfuscating abbreviation. I’d suggest just compare with an enum like so:

enum Compare(enum.Enum): none = 1 unordered = 2 ordered = 3

One thing I can’t avoid is DRY:

from dataclasses import Compare, dataclass

@dataclass(compare=Compare.unordered) class Foo: # …

Maybe exposing the enum items in the module namespace?

——dataclasses/init.py----- from enum import Enum

class Compare(Enum): none = 1 unordered = 2 ordered =3

none = Compare.none unordered = Compare.unordered ordered = Compare.ordered ——dataclasses/init.py-----

from dataclasses import dataclass, unordered

@dataclass(compare=unordered) class Foo: # …

Cheers, -Barry

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