On Feb 4, 6:53 am, André Malo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > * Steven D'Aprano wrote: > > On Sun, 03 Feb 2008 15:31:49 -0800, Paul Boddie wrote: > > >> I don't know whether I can offer much better advice than others, but I > >> have noticed that a lot of my own code has moved in the direction of not > >> having specific default values in function/method signatures. So, > >> instead of this... > > >> def f(x=123): > >> ... > > >> ...I have this: > > >> def f(x=None): > >> if x is None: > >> x = 123 > > > For the love of Pete, WHY?????? > > > I understand why you would do it for a mutable default, but immutable??? > > I'm observing myself doing the same, for the following reason: > > Consider the function being part of a bigger system, where it's called from > another function or method which should "inherit" the default value of the > function, like: > > def g(foo, bar, x=None): > ... > f(x=x) > > Now if you change the default value of f(x) for some reason, you don't have > to wind up all the possible caller signatures to reflect that change.
You might find handy a decorator I've written exactly for this scenario, reusing default arguments across functions: http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/440702 George -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
