Questions on __slots__

Charles Hixson charleshixsn at earthlink.net
Sat May 19 12:49:26 EDT 2012


On 05/19/2012 06:39 AM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> On Fri, 2012-05-18 at 09:53 -0700, Charles Hixson wrote:
>    
>> Does __slots__ make access to variables more efficient?
>>      
> Absolutely, yes.
>
>    
>> If one uses property() to create a few read-only pseudo-variables, does
>> that negate the efficiency advantages of using __slots__?
>> (Somehow I feel the documentation needs a bit of improvement.)
>>      
> If you are tempted to use property, setattr, etc... then do not use
> __slots__.  __slots__ should really only be used for Fly Weight pattern
> type work, or at least for objects with a limited scope and will not be
> inherited from.
>    
Thank you.  What I really wanted was a "named list", sort of like a 
"named tuple", only modifiable, but since the only way to do it was to 
create a class, I started thinking of reasonable operations for it to 
perform (data hiding, etc.)  Sounds like I should go back to the "named 
list" idea.

-- 
Charles Hixson




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