Definition of "property"

[Mike Dewhirst]

On 31/05/2021 2:57 am, Irv Kalb wrote:
> I am doing some writing (for an upcoming book on OOP), and I'm a little stuck.
>
> I understand what a "property" is, how it is used and the benefits, but apparently my explanation hasn't made the light bulb go on for my editor.  The editor is asking for a definition of property.  I've looked at many articles on line and a number of books, and I haven't found an appropriate one yet.
>
> I have written some good examples of how it works, but I agree that a definition up front would be helpful.  I have tried a number of times, but my attempts to define it have not been clear.  Perhaps the best I've found so far is from the Python documentation:
>
> A property object has getter, setter, and deleter methods usable as decorators that create a copy of the property with the corresponding accessor function set to the decorated function.
>
> But I'm hoping that someone here can give me a more concise (one or two sentence) definition of the word "property".

A property is an object method masquerading as a cachable object attribute

>
> (I would like to avoid going through the whole derivation with the property function, as that would distract from the points that I am trying to make.)
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Irv


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