[Python-Dev] PEP 443 - Single-dispatch generic functions (including ABC support)

[Łukasz Langa]

On 26 maj 2013, at 01:07, PJ Eby <pje at telecommunity.com> wrote:

> The PEP uses the term "implementation", and I think that
> actually makes a lot of sense: a generic function is composed of
> functions that implement the same operation for different types.

All suggested changes applied. There are still a couple of mentions of
"overloads" and "overloading" in the PEP but they are unambiguous now
and always refer to the general mechanism.


> Last, but not least, there should be a stacking example somewhere in
> the doc, as in the PEP

I swapped the old examples from the docs and reused the PEP API docs
in their entirety. This way it's easier to keep things consistent.


> (It may also be useful to note somewhere that, due to caching,
> changing the base classes of an existing class may not change what
> implementation is selected the next time the generic function is
> invoked with an argument of that type or a subclass thereof.)

I don't think it's necessary. Abstract base classes present the same
behaviour and this isn't documented anywhere:

>>> from abc import ABC
>>> class FirstABC(ABC): pass
>>> class SecondABC(ABC): pass
>>> class ImplementsFirst(FirstABC): pass
>>> assert FirstABC in ImplementsFirst.__mro__
>>> assert issubclass(ImplementsFirst, FirstABC)

If we change bases of the class, it no longer reports the first in
the MRO:

>>> ImplementsFirst.__bases__ = (SecondABC,)
>>> assert FirstABC not in ImplementsFirst.__mro__
>>> assert SecondABC in ImplementsFirst.__mro__
>>> assert issubclass(ImplementsFirst, SecondABC)

But it still reports being a subclass:

>>> assert issubclass(ImplementsFirst, FirstABC), "sic!"


-- 
Best regards,
Łukasz Langa

WWW: http://lukasz.langa.pl/
Twitter: @llanga
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