I would like for an object to "report" to a container object when a new instance is created or deleted. I could have a container object that is called when a new instance is created, as below.
class AnyObject: pass class Container: links = [] def add(self,other): while other not in self.links: self.links.append(other) def rem(self,other): while other in self.links: self.links.remove(other) ... container = Container() a = AnyObject() container.add(a) My question is: can (should? :-) this "reporting" be done inside the instance's __init__ and __del__ methods (that is, an instance "reports" to the container as soon as it is created or deleted)? Thanks! Daniel --- I'm working out a design where Object A is "linked" to Object B, and both objects become aware of that relationship. I have implemented an example successfully; the code is below. My main question is above, but I would appreciate comments on the code! (For example, I'm wondering whether my way of defining variables in the class but assigning them locally to each instance (in the "Object.init" method) is really a bad kludge...) class Object(): def __del__(self): print "buh-bye!", self # Verbose for understanding garbage cleanup def init(self,name): self.links = [] self.name = name def add(self,other): while other not in self.links: self.links.append(other) other.add(self) def rem(self,other): while other in self.links: self.links.remove(other) other.rem(self) class Student(Object): def __init__(self,name): self.init(name) class Section(Object): def __init__(self,name): self.init(name) class Task(Object): def __init__(self,name): self.init(name) ## Construct test instances! students = {} for name in ['Jose','Daniel','Rusty']: student = Student(name) students[name] = student sections = {} for name in ['English 1']: section = Section(name) sections[name] = section tasks = {} for name in ['Homework 1','Exam 1','Homework 2','Exam 2']: task = Task(name) tasks[name] = task # Display example connections def show_connections(): for section in sections: print sections[section].name for link in sections[section].links: print "\t", link.name # Add some connections... print "Now adding connections..." for name in tasks: sections['English 1'].add(tasks[name]) show_connections() # Remove some connections... print "Now removing connections..." for name in tasks: sections['English 1'].rem(tasks[name]) show_connections() for task in tasks: print tasks[task].links for section in sections: print sections[section].links ## Test garbage cleanup sections['English 1'].add(tasks['Exam 1']) print sections['English 1'].links sections['English 1'].rem(tasks['Exam 1']) del sections['English 1'] -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list