reaching hidden methods + casting

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

per9000 a écrit :
> Hi,
> can I reach a hidden method when doing ugly inheritance in python?
> 
>>>> class A:
> ...     def spin(self, n): print "A", n
> ...
>>>> class B:
> ...     def spin(self, m): print "B", m
> ...
>>>> class C(A,B):
> ...     def spin(self, k): print "C", k
> ...
>>>> myC = C()
>>>> dir(myC)
> ['__doc__', '__module__', 'spin']
> 
> In f.x. the C-family of languages I guess something like this would
> call B.spin:
> ((B)myC).spin("Lancelot"); // almost forgot the ';'

B.spin(myC, "lancelot")

In Python, the syntax:
    some_instance.some_method(param)

is syntactic sugar for
   SomeClass.some_method(some_instance, param)

(assuming isinstance(some_instance, SomeClass) == True)

> Please correct me I am wrong (which I likely am) but as I understand
> it this example calls the constructor of int instead of casting it,
> right?
>>>> leet = int('1337')
>>>> leet
> 1337

There's nothing like "casting" in Python - it would be meaningless in a 
dynamically typed language. The above example does not "cast" a string 
to an int, it creates an int - you have two distinct objects, whereas 
with casting you have two representations of the same object.

> Or should I have thought about getting unique names before I
> implemented the ugly inheritance graph?

This is a design question, and we don't have enough context to answer it.