Using metaclasses to inherit class variables

[Steven Bethard]

telesphore4 at gmail.com wrote:
> OK no question. I'm only posting b/c it may be something another newbie
> will want to google in the future. Now that I've worked thru the
> process this turns out to be fairly easy.
> 
> However, if there are better ways please let me know.
> 
> Module = ClassVars.py
> 
> import copy
> 
> class ClassVars(type):
>     classVars = {}
>     def __init__(cls, name, bases, dict):
>         for name, value in type(cls).classVars.iteritems():
>             if name not in dict:
>                 setattr(cls, name, copy.copy(value))
> 
> count = 0 # Not really needed but it semed nice to name the new types
> def are(dict):
>     global count
>     count += 1
>     return type('ClassVars%d' % count, (ClassVars,),
>                {'classVars':dict})
> 
> 
> To use in another module:
> 
> import ClassVars
> 
> class MyClass(str):
>     __metaclass__ = ClassVars.are(dict(name=None, desc=None,
>             myList=[]))
> 
>     # Rest of class definition ...

Hmm...  That still seems more complicated than you need.  I think you 
really want to be able to write something like:

     class C(object):
         __metaclass__ = set_classvars(name=None, desc=None, myList=[])

Which is actually quite easily done with nested functions:

 >>> def set_classvars(**kwargs):
...     def __metaclass__(name, bases, classdict):
...         for name, value in kwargs.iteritems():
...             if name not in classdict:
...                 classdict[name] = value
...         return type(name, bases, classdict)
...     return __metaclass__
...
 >>> class C(object):
...     __metaclass__ = set_classvars(name='foo', desc='bar', list=[])
...     name = 'not foo'
...
 >>> C.name, C.desc, C.list
('not foo', 'bar', [])
 >>> class D(C):
...     __metaclass__ = set_classvars(name='foo', list=[])
...
 >>> D.name, D.desc, D.list, D.list is C.list
('foo', 'bar', [], False)


STeVe