Emulating Final classes in Python

[Steve D'Aprano]

On Thu, 19 Jan 2017 09:02 am, Ethan Furman wrote:

[...]
> One problem with the above is existing instances won't be modified to
> inherit from the updated class.  I am unsure if that is solvable before
> 3.6, but in 3.6 one can use the new __init_subclass__ to avoid a Final
> base class, a FinalMeta type, and just update the existing class:
> 
> def final(cls):
>      def init_subclass(cls, **kwargs):
>          raise Exception('Final class cannot be subclassed')
>      cls.__init_subclass__ = classmethod(init_subclass)
>      return cls
> 
> This can be used as a decorator at class creation time, or at any later
> date to lock down a class.  The downside is it's less obvious that the
> class is final... meaning there are no clues in the MRO.

Ah nice! I didn't know about __init__subclass__.



-- 
Steve
“Cheer up,” they said, “things could be worse.” So I cheered up, and sure
enough, things got worse.