Decorators

[Jeff Shannon]

Dan Bishop wrote:

>"Colin J. Williams" <cjw at sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:<%A8Rc.50217$Vm1.1280580 at news20.bellglobal.com>...
>  
>
>>Christopher T. King suggested that "we're trying to kill too many birds 
>>with one stone".
>> 
>>http://groups.google.com/groups?q=stone+birds+group:comp.lang.python&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=Pine.LNX.4.44.0408050856390.31290-100000%40ccc9.wpi.edu&rnum=1
>>
>>He goes on to suggest three needs which decorators serve.  Are these the 
>>only purposes which are envisaged for decorators?
>>    
>>
>
>If I understand correctly, they'd be useful for anything where you'd
>now use the syntax
>
>function = decorator(function)
>  
>

Many of the uses I'm seeing proposed for decorators would fit better 
into the current syntax:

def func( ... )
    pass
dosomething(func)

In other words, they're not specifically changing the behavior of the 
function, but they are using the (name and/or address of the) function 
in some other context.  The modification of the function (or method) 
itself is an unnecessary side effect. 

Whether this distinction matters is obviously a purely aesthetic matter, 
since obviously the decorator can rebind the name to the original 
function object instead of a wrapping-function object.  But still, it 
does suggest that this concept is indeed being put to multiple 
orthogonal purposes. 

Jeff Shannon
Technician/Programmer
Credit International