Problem of Readability of Python

[John Machin]

On 8/10/2007 4:14 AM, Steven Bethard wrote:
> Licheng Fang wrote:
>> Python is supposed to be readable, but after programming in Python for
>> a while I find my Python programs can be more obfuscated than their C/C
>> ++ counterparts sometimes. Part of the reason is that with
>> heterogeneous lists/tuples at hand, I tend to stuff many things into
>> the list and *assume* a structure of the list or tuple, instead of
>> declaring them explicitly as one will do with C structs. So, what used
>> to be
>>
>> struct nameval {
>>     char * name;
>>    int val;
>> } a;
>>
>> a.name = ...
>> a.val = ...
>>
>> becomes cryptic
>>
>> a[0] = ...
>> a[1] = ...
>>
>> Python Tutorial says an empty class can be used to do this. But if
>> namespaces are implemented as dicts, wouldn't it incur much overhead
>> if one defines empty classes as such for some very frequently used
>> data structures of the program?
>>
>> Any elegant solutions?
> 
> You can use __slots__ to make objects consume less memory and have 
> slightly better attribute-access performance. Classes for objects that 
> need such performance tweaks should start like::
> 
>     class A(object):
>         __slots__ = 'name', 'val'
> 
> The recipe below fills in the obvious __init__ method for such classes 
> so that the above is pretty much all you need to write:
> 
>     http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/502237
> 
> 

If not needing/wanting __slots__, something simpler (no metaclasses!) 
like the following helps the legibility/utility:

<file record.py>

class BaseRecord(object):

     def __init__(self, **kwargs):
         for k, v in kwargs.iteritems():
             setattr(self, k, v)

     def dump(self, text=''):
         print '== dumping %s instance: %s' % (self.__class__.__name__, 
text)
         for k, v in sorted(self.__dict__.iteritems()):
             print '   %s: %r' % (k, v)
</file record.py>


Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Apr 18 2007, 08:51:08) [MSC v.1310 32 bit 
(Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
 >>> from record import BaseRecord
 >>> class A(BaseRecord):
...     pass
...
 >>> class B(BaseRecord):
...     pass
...
 >>> a1 = A(foo=1, bar='rab', zot=(1, 2))
 >>> a2 = A(foo=2, bar='xxx', zot=(42, 666))
 >>> a1.dump()
== dumping A instance:
    bar: 'rab'
    foo: 1
    zot: (1, 2)
 >>> a2.dump('more of the same')
== dumping A instance: more of the same
    bar: 'xxx'
    foo: 2
    zot: (42, 666)
 >>> a1.ugh = 'poked in'
 >>> a1.dump('after poking')
== dumping A instance: after poking
    bar: 'rab'
    foo: 1
    ugh: 'poked in'
    zot: (1, 2)
 >>> b1 = B()
 >>> b1.dump()
== dumping B instance:
 >>> b1.esrever = 'esrever'[::-1]
 >>> b1.dump()
== dumping B instance:
    esrever: 'reverse'
 >>>

HTH,
John