__bases__ misleading error message

[Marco Buttu]

On 24/01/2015 20:24, Terry Reedy wrote:

> On 1/24/2015 5:16 AM, Mario Figueiredo wrote:
>>
>> Consider the following code at your REPL of choice
>
>>         class Sub:
>>             pass
>>
>>         foo = Sub()
>>
>>         Sub.__bases__
>>         foo.__bases__
>>
>> The last statement originates the following error:
>
> This is an anomalous situation.  Normally, if a class has an attribute,
> instances have the same attribute (unless overriden).  But this does not
> matter.

That is not true: if a class has an attribute, you can not say its 
instances have the same attribute. You can just say if a type defines an 
attribute, all its instances have that attribute. Look at this example:

 >>> class Foo(type):
...     foo = 33
...
 >>> Foo.foo
33
 >>> MyClass = Foo('MyClass', (), {})

MyClass is an instance of Foo, so it must have the attribute foo:

 >>> isinstance(MyClass, Foo)
True
 >>> MyClass.foo
33

But an instance of MyClass is not an instance of Foo, and so MyClass() 
must not have the attribute foo. In fact:

 >>> m = MyClass()
 >>> isinstance(m, Foo)
False
 >>> m.foo
Traceback (most recent call last):
     ...
AttributeError: 'MyClass' object has no attribute 'foo'


-- 
Marco Buttu