[Tutor] decorators (the "at" sign)?

[Alex Hall]

Thanks to all for the explanations. I think I understand how this
works, basically. I doubt I will use the concept anytime soon, but I
think I get it enough to follow what is happening in the source code
of the application I am examining.

On 10/27/10, Siren Saren <siren99 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Alex,
>
> Many people have trouble wrapping their minds around decorators.  I couldn't
> find a decent explanation either until reading an allegedly 'advanced'
> python book (b/c 'advanced' is in the title, I guess).
>
> An easy explanation might be sufficient, if you don't intend to use them
> yourself.  A decorator is a way of changing a function's behavior.  Most of
> the time you see a decorator, the person using it could have merely
> rewritten the function or method itself and given it some additional
> capability or modified it in some way.  But, as you may have noticed,
> programmers prefer to 'abstract' when they can, so they can avoid
> 'duplicating code.'  (These are buzzwords you'll encounter a lot).
>
> Let's say your program needs to set an index in a lot of different
> functions, and let's further imagine that setting an index is either more
> than a line of code or that the index itself may change over the development
> cycle, or that the index will vary according to some simple pattern
> consistently defined in these other functions.
>
> To avoid writing the same code over and over and having the value of index
> set in many different places, the developers chose instead to write the code
> once and refer to it in all the other functions through a decorator, which
> takes all the functions, modifies them so they get the index values they
> need, and sets them back in their places (more or less).
>
> If you want the more complicated answer, I think I can take a reasonable
> shot at showing how this works too and making an example.  But you may just
> want a general description.  Also, I'm only about 4 months into learning to
> program so you may prefer a more expert opinion.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Soren
>
> --- On Tue, 10/26/10, Alex Hall <mehgcap at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> From: Alex Hall <mehgcap at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Tutor] decorators (the "at" sign)?
> To: "tutor" <tutor at python.org>
> Date: Tuesday, October 26, 2010, 2:46 AM
>
> Hi all,
> Now that I am able to run the source code of an open source
> application I hope to one day help develop, I am trying to understand
> how it works. One thing I keep seeing is an at sign followed by a
> word, usually (maybe always) immediately preceeding a function
> definition. For example, and I know this exact code will not make much
> sense, but it gives the idea:
> class Bing(Messages, Updating, Dismissable):
>
>  @set_index
>  def get_url(self, index=None):
>   return self.storage[index]['Url']
>
> What is the "@set_index" for? Specifically, what is the at sign doing?
> Google was only able to provide me with a very vague idea of what is
> going on, though it seems to crop up a lot in classmethod and
> staticmethod calls (not sure about those either). I read PEP 318, but
> it was not much help since I am coming at this having no idea what I
> am looking at. The PEP did explain why I have never run into this
> before, though - it is apparently specific to Python. I see this sort
> of thing all over this source code so it seems like a good idea to get
> exactly what it is for. TIA!
>
>
> --
> Have a great day,
> Alex (msg sent from GMail website)
> mehgcap at gmail.com; http://www.facebook.com/mehgcap
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-- 
Have a great day,
Alex (msg sent from GMail website)
mehgcap at gmail.com; http://www.facebook.com/mehgcap