meta-class review

[Carl Banks]

On Oct 5, 4:17 pm, Ethan Furman <et... at stoneleaf.us> wrote:
> On one the many mini-reports we use, we have a bunch of counts that are
> frequently zero; because the other counts can also be low, it becomes
> easy to miss the non-zero counts.  For example:
>
> Code  Description
>
>        Conv Errors              :       6
>
> 31,N  DPV Failure              :       4
> 10:   Invalid Address          :       0
> 11:   Invalid C/S/Z            :       0
> 12:   Invalid State            :       0
> 13:   Invalid City             :       0
> 17:   Insufficient Information :       0
> 33:   Non-Deliverable          :       0
> 98:   Non-USPS zip             :       0
>
> 21:   Address Not Found        :       0
> 22:   Multiple Responses       :       3
> 23:   Error in Primary         :       0
> 24:   Error in Secondary       :       0
>
> So I thought I would print '-' instead...
>
> Code  Description
>
>        Conv Errors              :       6
>
> 31,N  DPV Failure              :       4
> 10:   Invalid Address          :       -
> 11:   Invalid C/S/Z            :       -
> 12:   Invalid State            :       -
> 13:   Invalid City             :       -
> 17:   Insufficient Information :       -
> 33:   Non-Deliverable          :       -
> 98:   Non-USPS zip             :       -
>
> 21:   Address Not Found        :       -
> 22:   Multiple Responses       :       3
> 23:   Error in Primary         :       -
> 24:   Error in Secondary       :       -
>
> Much easier to pick out the numbers now.  To support this, the code
> changed slightly -- it went from
>
> '%-25s: %7d' % ('DPV Failure', counts['D'])
>
> to
>
> '%-25s: %7s' % ('DPV Failure', counts['D'] if counts['D'] else '-'))
>
> This became a pain after a dozen lines, prompting my previous question
> about the difference between %s and %d when printing integers.  With the
> excellent replies I received I coded a short class:
>
> class DashInt(int):
>      def __str__(x):
>          if x:
>              return str(x)
>          return '-'
>
> and my line printing code shrunk back to it's previous size.  Well, it
> wasn't long before I realized that when a DashInt was added to an int,
> an int came back... and so did the '0's.  So I added some more lines to
> the class.
>
>      def __add__(x, other):
>          result = super(DashInt, x).__add__(other)
>          return result
>
> and then I tried to do a floating type operation, so added yet more lines...
>
>      def __add__(x, other):
>          result = super(DashInt, x).__add__(other)
>          if result == NotImplemented:
>              return NotImplemented
>          return result
>
> and so on and so on for the basic math functions that I will be using...
> what a pain!  And then I had a thought... metaclasses!  If DashInt used
> a metaclass that would automatically check the result, and if it was
> base class wrap it up in the new subclass, my DashInt class could go
> back to being five simple lines, plus one more for the metaclass specifier.
>
> So DashInt currently looks like this:
>
> class TempInt(int):
>      __metaclass__ = Perpetuate
>      def __str__(x):
>          if x == 0:
>              return '-'
>          return int.__str__(x)
>
> and Perpetuate looks like this:
>
> class Perpetuate(type):
>      def __init__(yo, *args, **kwargs):
>          super(type, yo).__init__(*args)
>      def __new__(metacls, cls_name, cls_bases, cls_dict):
>          if len(cls_bases) > 1:
>              raise TypeError("multiple bases not allowed")
>          result_class = type.__new__( \
>            metacls, cls_name, cls_bases, cls_dict)
>          base_class = cls_bases[0]
>          known_methods = set()
>          for method in cls_dict.keys():
>              if callable(getattr(result_class, method)):
>                  known_methods.add(method)
>
>          base_methods = set()
>          for method in base_class.__dict__.keys():
>              if callable(getattr(base_class, method, None)) and \
>                      method not in ('__new__'):
>                  base_methods.add(method)
>
>          for method in base_methods:
>              if method not in known_methods:
>                  setattr(result_class, method, \
>                          _wrap(base_class, getattr(base_class, method)))
>
>          return result_class
>
> def _wrap(base, code):
>      def wrapper(self, *args, **kwargs):
>          result = code(self, *args, **kwargs)
>          if type(result) == base:
>              return self.__class__(result)
>          return result
>      wrapper.__name__ = code.__name__
>      wrapper.__doc__ = code.__doc__
>      return wrapper
>
> It seems to work fine for normal operations.  I had to exclude __new__
> because it was a classmethod, and I suspect I would have similar issues
> with staticmethods.
>
> Any comments appreciated, especially ideas on how to better handle
> class- and staticmethods


Well, it's definitely overkill for printing a dash instead of a zero,
but a lot of people have asked how to create a subtype of int (or
other builtin) that coerces the other operand, and your idea is
interesting in that you don't have to write boilerplate to override
all the operations.

Main drawback is that it's incomplete.  For example, it doesn't coerce
properties.  int.real returns the real part of the int (i.e., the int
itself).  A subclass's real attribute should return an instance of the
subclass, but it won't.  Another example is float.__divmod__, which
returns a tuple.  Your coercive type would fail to convert the items
of that tuple.  A metaclass like this I think would be possible, with
the understanding that it can never be foolproof, but it needs more
work.

Pointers:
Defining __init__ isn't necessary for this metaclass.

The "len(cls_bases) > 1" test can be thwarted if the base type
multiply inherits from other types itself.  The best thing to do is
handle the case of arbitrary type hierarchies, but if you don't want
to do that then the right way to catch it is to create the subtype
then check that the __mro__ is (type, base_type, object).


Carl Banks