instance vs class attributes

[James Stroud]

Sarir said:
> Here are my questions:
>
> 1) What are the benefits of using a member variable without the 'self'
>    qualifier? (I think this is because you can use _x without an
>    instance of A().)

No such thing as a benefit here. self.a inside a method is the same as a 
outside (see code below for what I mean).

> 2) Is there a preferred coding style (_x vs self.x)?

This is essentially a non sequitur.

> 3) Should private data be written as self._x instead of self.x?

This is a long standing debate. The usual answer is "we are all grownups 
here", meaning that self.x is preferred. However, I personally like self._x 
to let potential users of my code know that I intended it to be private.

The code I was talking about:

>>> class bob:
...   a = 2
...   def get_a(self):
...     return self.a
...   def set_a(self,an_a):
...     self.a = an_a
...
>>> abob = bob()
>>> abob.get_a()
2
>>> abob.a
2
>>> abob.set_a(14)
>>> abob.a
14
>>> abob.get_a()
14
>>> class carol:
...   self.a = 22
...
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
  File "<stdin>", line 2, in carol
NameError: name 'self' is not defined


James

-- 
James Stroud, Ph.D.
UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics
Box 951570
Los Angeles, CA 90095

http://www.jamesstroud.com/