Does altering a private member decouple the property's value?

[Alex Martelli]

Ben Finney <bignose+hates-spam at benfinney.id.au> wrote:

> "Ethan Kennerly" <kennerly at finegamedesign.com> writes:
> 
> > I really like properties for readonly attributes,
> 
> Python doesn't have "readonly attributes", 

Many Python types do, e.g.:

>>> def f(): pass
... 
>>> def g(): pass
... 
>>> f.func_name = 'zap'
>>> f.func_code = g.func_code
>>> f
<function zap at 0x66070>
>>> f.func_code
<code object g at 0x55458, file "<stdin>", line 1>
>>> f.func_closure = g.func_closure
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: readonly attribute

i.e., you can reassign some of f's attributes (such as its name and
code) but others (such as its closure) are readonly (as the TypeError's
message says) so you cannot reassign those.

It makes just as much sense for user-coded types (aka classes) to have
some r/w attributes and others that are readonly, as it does for builtin
types -- and properties are often the simplest way to accomplish that.

> and to attempt to use
> properties for that purpose will only lead to confusion.

I disagree -- a property is a great way to implement readonly
attributes, as long as you're using a new-style class of course.


class Rectangle(object):

    def __init__(self, w, h):
        self.w = w
        self.h = h

    area = property(lambda self: self.w * self.h)

No confusion here -- given a Rectangle instance r, you can both read and
write (reassign) r.w and r.h, but r.area is readonly (can't be set):

>>> r = Rectangle(12, 34)
>>> r.area
408
>>> r.h = 10
>>> r.area
120
>>> r.area = 144
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: can't set attribute


Alex