Are decorators really that different from metaclasses...

[Hallvard B Furuseth]

Paul Morrow wrote:
>    >>> def baz():
>    ...    """docstring of baz"""
>    ...
>    >>> baz.__doc__
>    'docstring of baz'
>    >>> baz.__dict__.keys()
>    []
> 
> Say what?  Why didn't the Python system put baz's docstring into it's 
> namespace (__dict__)?   And where did it put it?

I'm fairly new to Python, but I think you are just using the wrong
interface to access the namespace.  __dict__ isn't necessarily
something's namespace, even if it has a __dict__:

>>> class C(object): __slots__ = 'hide'
... 
>>> class D(C): pass
... 
>>> o = D()
>>> o.show, o.hide = 3, 5
>>> o.__dict__
{'show': 3}

OTOH,

>>> dir(o)
['__class__', '__delattr__', '__dict__', ... 'hide', 'show']
>>> getattr(o, 'hide')
5
>>> def foo(): """docstring"""
... 
>>> dir(foo)
['__call__', '__class__', '__delattr__', '__dict__', '__doc__', ...]
>>> setattr(foo, '__doc__', "nope")
>>> help(foo)
Help on function foo in module __main__:

foo()
    nope

-- 
Hallvard