mutable ints: I think I have painted myself into a corner

[Cameron Simpson]

On 19May2013 09:01, Peter Otten <__peter__ at web.de> wrote:
| Cameron Simpson wrote:
| 
| > TL;DR: I think I want to modify an int value "in place".
| > 
| > Yesterday I was thinking about various "flag set" objects I have
| > floating around which are essentially bare "object"s whose attributes
| > I access, for example:
| > 
| >   flags = object()
| >   flags.this = True
| >   flags.that = False
| > 
| > and then elsewhere:
| > 
| >   if flags.that:
| >     do that ...
| > 
| > Nice and readable, but I thought to myself: so bulky!
| 
| Plus, it doesn't work:

Yeah, sorry. My "old" code was a trite subclass of object.
The new broken code is a subclass of int.

| > But setting up a flags object? What I _want_ to write is code like this:
| > 
| >   Flags = BitMask('this', 'that')
| > 
| >   # set default state
| >   flags = Flags()
| >   flags.this = False
| >   flags.that = True
| >   ... iterate over some options ...: flags.this = True
| > 
| > and there's my problem. This would modify the int in place. There's
| > no way to do that. For the base type (int) this makes perfect sense,
| > as they're immutable.
| > 
| > Before I toss this approach and retreat to my former "object"
| > technique, does anyone see a way forward to modify an int subclass
| > instance in place? (That doesn't break math, preferably; I don't
| > do arithmetic with these things but they are, after all, ints...)
| 
| No, but you could make
| 
| flags = Flags(this=False, that=True)

Yes, that is true. Flags would need to be a factory function computing
the corresponding bitmask value and then returning my new int, but
it would work. It still wouldn't let me go the whole way of modifying
the flags after instantiation.

Cheers,
-- 
Cameron Simpson <cs at zip.com.au>

Carpe Daemon - Seize the Background Process
        - Paul Tomblin <ab401 at freenet2.carleton.ca>