Are decorators really that different from metaclasses...

[Arthur]

On 26 Aug 2004 15:20:10 -0700, jess.austin at gmail.com (Jess Austin)
wrote:

>Paul Morrow <pm_mon at yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<mailman.2423.1093527121.5135.python-list at python.org>...
>> Currently, you can change a doc string outside of a function, by 
>> modifying the function's __doc__ attribute
>
>[snip]
>
>> IMO, to change it inside of a function def should be (but isn't) as easy 
>> as...
>> 
>>    >>> def foo():
>>    ...     """ I am foo """
>>    ...     __doc__ = __doc__ + 'indeed'
>
>I'm not trying to be mean, but why not use a class for this?  

I believe he was only being illustrative.

My use case:
(unless I'm being stupid)

IDLE 1.0.3      
>>>class foo:
              hint ="boo"
	def bar(self):
		"bar using %s" %hint
		pass

	
>>> f=foo()
>>> print f.bar.__doc__
None

vs.

>>> class foo:
	hint ="boo"
	def bar(self):
		pass
	bar.__doc__="bar using %s" %hint

	
>>> f=foo()
>>> print f.bar.__doc__
bar using boo


But to me more important, in the context of the overall discussion, is
in seeing some good connectedness between the problem of being forced
outside and below the function to use string substitution on its
docstring, and the limited range of options that seem to be available
to try to solve the percieved syntax problems related to
transformations (pre a2) being stuck outside and below.

Is the apparent connectedness only skin deep?  

It's not making sense to me that is.

Art