[Python-Dev] Simulating shells (was Re: Changing the Division Operator -- PEP 238, rev 1.12)

[Michael Hudson]

Paul Prescod <paulp@ActiveState.com> writes:

> Michael Hudson wrote:
> > 
> >...
> >     I propose adding a fourth, optional, "flags" argument to the
> >     builtin "compile" function.  If this argument is omitted, there
> >     will be no change in behaviour from that of Python 2.1.
> >
> >     If it is present it is expected to be an integer, representing
> >     various possible compile time options as a bitfield.  
> 
> Nit: What is the virtue to using a C-style bitfield? The efficiency
> isn't much of an issue. I'd prefer either keyword arguments or a list of
> strings.

Err, hadn't really occured to me to do anything else, to be honest!

At one point I was going to use the same bits as are used in the
code.co_flags field, which was probably where the bitfield idea
originated.

By "keyword arguments" do you mean e.g:

   compile(source, file, start_symbol, generators=1, division=0)

?  I think that would be mildly painful for the one use I had in mind
(the additions to codeop), and also mildly painful to implement.

   compile(source, file, start_symbol,{'generators':1, 'division':0})

would be better from my point of view.  I think this is a bit of a
propeller-heads-only feature, to be honest, so I'm not that inclined
to worry aobut the API.

Cheers,
M.

-- 
3. Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
  -- Alan Perlis, http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html