the 'in' operator and class instances

[Gerrit Holl]

Hi,

Vinoo vasudevan wrote:
> >>> class a:
>    def f(self):
>       pass
> 
> >>> 'f' in a
> <Traceback>
> 
> Could somebody tell me why class instances don't use in to check for
> memebership i.e. something like hasattr(..). I read up on "__contains__" in
> the Language Reference. Couldn't python just define a default version of this
> for all classes/instances to check for membership. Any class that attaches a
> special meaning to membership can of course define its own "__contains__". In
> c++ terminology (my __previous__ language :-) ) : can't "object" define a
> virtual function "__contains__"? Just a suggestion. Plz let me know if I don't
> have a clue of I'm talking about. :-)

To create this behavious, you would need a metaclass:

  2 >>> class meta(type):
  2 ...  def __contains__(self, o):
  2 ...   return hasattr(self, o)
  2 ...
  3 >>> class Foo:
  3 ...  __metaclass__ = meta
  3 ...  def m(self): pass
  3 ...
  4 >>> 'm' in Foo
True
  5 >>> 'n' in Foo
False

Metaclasses are documented at
http://www.python.org/2.2.3/descrintro.html#metaclasses

This behaviour would hence need to be in "type", not in "object". Foo's
__class__ is "type", so __contains__ is looked up in "type". Python's
builtin types are not open classes, so it would need to be in the language.

yours,
Gerrit.

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