extending an existing class without inhertance

[Martin Schmettow]

>>Extending the class by inheritance is obvious but seems not 
>>practical in this case, because a lot is done by Factories, which
>>you cant just tell to produce MyElement instead of Element.
>>The easiest solution would be to enhance the existing class by just 
>>adding the method. I did this several times in Perl (in a 
>>former life, of course).
>>Can anybody tell me the Python way to do it. Other solutions 
>>are welcome as well.
>>
>>CU
>>Martin.
>>
sismex01 at hebmex.com wrote:
> 
> What you're asking is quite doable, and simple, in Python.
> Let me explain by example. Let's take a simple class where
> we want to add a simple (originally non-existant) method.
> 
> 
>>>>class Duck:
> 
> 	def __init__(self, name):
> 		self.name = name
> 	def __str__(self):
> 		return "<%s instance '%s' at %s>" % \
> 		       (self.__class__.__name__, self.name, hex(id(self)))
> 	__repr__ = __str__
> 
> 
>>>>d1 = Duck("Donald")
>>>>d2 = Duck("Daffy")
>>>>d1, d2
> 
> (<Duck instance 'Donald' at 0xb16e00>, <Duck instance 'Daffy' at 0xb19fb0>)
> 
> 
> So we have a class which returns 'self's info upon calling
> it's __str__ method. Simple.
> 
> Now, let's define a function which print's out --not returns--
> the information about an instance.  It's like, but not quite,
> __str__. :-)
> 
> 
>>>>def Identify(duck):
> 
> 	print "%s of name '%s', and identity %s" % \
> 	      (duck.__class__.__name__, duck.name, hex(id(duck)))
> 
> 
>>>>Identify(d1)
> 
> Duck of name 'Donald', and identity 0xb16e00
> 
>>>>Identify(d2)
> 
> Duck of name 'Daffy', and identity 0xb19fb0
> 
> 
> So it's simple-minded; this is a simple example. :-)
> Now, let's convert this ordinary function into a method,
> which is callable from any instance.
> 
> First, let's verify that this method doesn't exist:
> 
> 
>>>>d1.Identify()
> 
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<pyshell#55>", line 1, in ?
>     d1.Identify()
> AttributeError: Duck instance has no attribute 'Identify'
> 
> 
> Now, in order to "bind" this function to a class method,
> we assign it to the class object, as an attribute:
> 
> 
>>>>d1.__class__.Identify = Identify
>>>>del Identify
>>>>
> 
> 
> I deleted it from the global (module) namespace, just
> to be a bit more explicit about the original function
> not existing anymore:
> 
> 
>>>>Identify(d1)
> 
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<pyshell#60>", line 1, in ?
>     Identify(d1)
> NameError: name 'Identify' is not defined
> 
> 
> 
> So now, we try out the function, now bound as an
> instance method of the Duck class.  Although we
> didn't actually assign it to "Duck.Identify",
> remember that d1.__class__ is Duck.
> 
> 
> 
>>>>d1.Identify()
> 
> Duck of name 'Donald', and identity 0xb16e00
> 
>>>>d2.Identify()
> 
> Duck of name 'Daffy', and identity 0xb19fb0

Hi Gustavo.

Thanks for your advice. Learned some interesting python internals on it.
But in this case it didn't help. I get an AttributeError: __class__ and 
the same with __dict__ btw. I am using the Ft.Xml.Domlette (from 
4Suite). In the doc it says, that cDomlette is used internally. This is 
an  implementation in C. Might this be the problem?

CU
Martin.