[Python-Dev] New syntax for 'dynamic' attribute access

[Brett Cannon]

On 2/11/07, Ben North <ben at redfrontdoor.org> wrote:
[SNIP]
> * The draft currently allows a two-argument form, to supply a default
>   value if the object has no attribute of that name.  This mimics the
>   behaviour of the three-argument form of getattr, but looks a bit wrong:
>
>      s = obj.(attr_name, 'default string')
>
>   I agree that it looks odd, but perhaps the extra expressive power
>   gained might be worth the oddness.

I don't think it is.  getattr can just be kept around if need be in
order to support this use case.  It just makes it look like too much
of a function call at that point to me, especially if someone ends up
writing some expression that is so long that they put in a newline
between the two values:

  s = obj.(attr_name,
                 'default_string')

So -1 on the two-item version, +0 on the one-item version.

-Brett