Automatic Generation of Python Class Files

[Chris Mellon]

On 10/22/07, Sunburned Surveyor <sunburned.surveyor at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Oct 22, 10:26 am, "Chris Mellon" <arka... at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 10/22/07, Sunburned Surveyor <sunburned.surve... at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > I was thinking of a way I could make writing Python Class Files a
> > > little less painful. I was considering a Ptyhon script that read a
> > > file with a list of property names and method names and then generated
> > > a skeleton class file.
> >
> > > I was even thinking of automatically generating the shell for doc
> > > strings and epydoc tags.
> >
> > > Is there existing scripts that do something like this? If not, I will
> > > try to come up with something. If I'm sucessful I'll release the code
> > > under the GPL and will report back to the list.
> >
> > > However, I thought I would check here first so that I don't reinvent
> > > the wheel.
> >
> > > Thanks,
> >
> > > Scott Huey
> >
> > I can't think of a single reason why you would ever want to do this,
> > since your "list of method and property names" would be just as
> > verbose as just typing the actual python code.
> >
> > Auto generated documentation stubs are considered harmful because they
> > take the place of real documentation.- Hide quoted text -
> >
> > - Show quoted text -
>
> Chris,
>
> You wrote: " can't think of a single reason why you would ever want to
> do this,
> since your "list of method and property names" would be just as
> verbose as just typing the actual python code."
>
> I don't think I understand how this would be the same amount of
> typing. Consider the following example that would generate a Monster
> class file from an input text file (I only did one property and method
> in generated class file.):
>
> Contents of input text file:
>
> [Name]
> Fire Breathing Dragon
>
> [Properties]
> Strength
> Scariness
> Endurance
>
> [Methods]
> eatMaiden argMaiden
> fightKnight argKnight
>
> Generated Python Class File:
>
> def class FireBreathingDragon:
>
>    def getStrength(self):
>       """
>       Docstring goes here.
>
>       @return
>       @rtype
>       """
>       return self.strength
>
>    def setStrength(self, argStrength):
>       """
>       Docstring goes here.
>
>       @param argStrength
>       @ptype
>       """
>       return self.strength
>
>    def eatMaiden(self, argMaiden):
>       """
>       Docstring goes here.
>
>       @param argMaiden
>       @ptype
>       """
>

Your getters/setters are useless (Python isn't Java) and so are the
docstrings, because you have to write them over again anyway. Removing
them results in 3 lines of code, quite a bit shorter than your  input
file, and it doesn't have any of the quite well known issues with this
sort of boiler plate code generation.