Possible to create a read-only complex object?

[Terry Reedy]

On 7/11/2010 12:51 PM, python at bdurham.com wrote:
> I have a complex object with attributes that contain lists, sets,
> dictionaries, and other objects. The lists and dictionaries may
> themselves contain complex objects.
> I would like to provide a read-only version of this type of object for
> other developers to query for reporting.
> Is there a way to prevent other developers from changing the attributes
> of my complex and nested object?
> In researching this question, I have identified __setattr__ and
> __delattr__ as possible ways to prevent changes to simple attributes,
> but I don't believe these magic methods will prevent others from
> fiddling with attributes containing lists and dictionaries or the
> contents of these lists and dictionaries.

Python was not really not developed for multi-developer projects whose 
members are willing to stomp on each others objects.

> Another idea I had was to create a wrapper object to proxy all access to
> the original object. Is there a generic reciepe for this type of wrapper?


-- 
Terry Jan Reedy