What do you call a class not intended to be instantiated

[Aaron "Castironpi" Brady]

On Sep 22, 8:45 am, "Tim Rowe" <digi... at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/9/22 Bruno Desthuilliers <bruno.42.desthuilli... at websiteburo.invalid>:
>
> >> Sounds to me like a functor, aka a function object:
> >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function_object
>
> > Ok, then the simple solution is to implement a callable type (__call__
> > method), possibly with appropriate support for the descriptor protocol if
> > it's meant to be usable as a method.
>
> Yes -- and instantiate the thing and keep the state in the instance,
> rather than keeping the state in the class, so that it's possible to
> safely have more than one of them if a later design change calls for
> it (probably what led people off onto the sidetrack of thinking a
> singleton was called for).  That's the classic way of implementing a
> "class [to be] used as a function".
>
> --
> Tim Rowe

I think you are either looking for a class that has a generator, or a
generator that has a reference to itself.