descriptor & docstring

[Gabriel Genellina]

En Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:29:40 -0300, George Sakkis  
<george.sakkis at gmail.com> escribió:
> On Apr 28, 10:59 pm, "Gabriel Genellina"
>
>> def property_default(prop_name, default_value=None, doc=None):
>>
>>      attr_name = '_'+prop_name
>>
>>      def fget(self, attr_name=attr_name,
>>                     default_value=default_value):
>>          return getattr(self, attr_name, default_value)
>>
>>      def fset(self, value,
>>                     attr_name=attr_name,
>>                     default_value=default_value):
>>          if value == default_value:
>>              delattr(self, attr_name)
>>          else:
>>              setattr(self, attr_name, value)
>>
>>      return property(fget=fget, fset=fset, doc=doc)
>>
>> When setting the same value as the default, the instance attribute is  
>> removed (so the default will be used when retrieving the value later).  
>> I think this is what you intended to do.
>
> Note that this will fail if the value is already equal to the default
> and you try to reset it to the default, so it needs an extra
> hasattr(self, attr_name) before the delattr. Regardless, I would be
> surprised with the following behaviour:
>
>>>> r = Rectangle()
>>>> r.length = 4
>>>> type(r.length)
> <type 'int'>
>>>> r.length = 12
>>>> type(r.length)
> <type 'float'>

Yep, probably the best thing to do is to always call setattr and avoid  
special cases.

> Another simpler alternative would be to (ab)use a decorator:
>
> def defaultproperty(func):
>     attr = '_' + func.__name__
>     default = func.func_defaults[0]
>     return property(
>         fget = lambda self: getattr(self, attr, default),
>         fset = lambda self,value: setattr(self, attr, value),
>         doc = func.__doc__)
>
>
> class Rectangle(object):
>     '''A beautiful Rectangle'''
>
>     @defaultproperty
>     def length(default=12.0):
>         '''This is the length property'''


Nice, although that empty function looks somewhat strange...

-- 
Gabriel Genellina