PEP: Specialization Syntax

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Nicolas Fleury wrote:
> Well, I'm using the alternatives.

Perhaps not to the full power.

> __arrayTypes = {}
> def makeArrayType(arg1, arg2=someDefault):
>     if (arg1, arg2) in __arrayTypes:
>         return __arrayTypes[arg1, arg2]
>     renamed_arg1 = arg1
>     renamed_arg2 = arg2
>     class Array:
>     arg1 = renamed_arg1
>     arg2 = renamed_arg2
>         ...
>     __arrayTypes[arg1, arg2] = Array
>     return Array
> 
> Does it qualify as an "acceptable alternative"? when it could have been:
> 
> class Array[arg1, arg2=someDefault]:

So you don't want to write the makeArrayType function, right?

How about this:

# declaration
class Array(object):
  __typeargs__ = ['arg1', ('arg2', someDefault)]
  ...

# use
t = specialize(Array, arg1=Int32)

where specialize is defined as

def specialize(ptype, *args):
  result = type(ptype.__name__, (ptype,), args)
  for t in result.__typeargs__:
      if isinstance(t, string):
          if not hasattr(result, t):
              raise TypeError("missing parameter "+t)
      else:
          name,val = t
          if not hasattr(result, name):
              setattr(result, val)
   return result

Regards,
Martin