Strange metaclass behaviour

Michele Simionato michele.simionato at gmail.com
Thu Mar 23 09:57:52 EST 2006


Ziga Seilnacht wrote:
>  - Since D does not have a __metaclass__ attribute,
>    its type is determined from its bases.
>  - Since A is the first base, its type (M_A) is called;
>    unfortunately this is not the way metaclasses are
>    supposed to work; the most derived metaclass should
>    be selected.
>  - M_A's __new__ method calls the __new__ method of the
>    next class in MRO; that is, super(M_1, meta).__new__
>    is equal to type.__new__.
>  - In type.__new__, it is determined that M_A is not
>    the best type for D class; it should be actually M_B.
>  - Since type.__new__ was called with wrong metaclass
>    as the first argument, call the correct metaclass.
>  - This calls M_B.__new__, which again calls type.__new__,
>    but this time with M_B as the first argument, which
>    is correct.

This is a very good explanation and it should go somewhere in the
standard docs.
I remember I spent a significant amount of time and effort to reach the
same conclusion
a while ago, and now I have already started to forget eveything a again
:-(
Anyway, I will bookmark this post for future reference ;)

        Michele Simionato




More information about the Python-list mailing list