On Wed, 21 Jan 2009 01:02:37 -0800, Aaron Brady wrote: >> >>> class Parrot: >> >> ... _private = 'spam' >> ...>>> p = Parrot() >> >>> p._private = 'ham' # allowed by default from protection import >> >>> lock >> >>> lock(p)._private >> >>> p._private = 'spam' >> >> Traceback (most recent call last): >> File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> >> ProtectionError: attribute is read-only from outside of class Parrot >> >> Would that be so bad? I don't think so. > > Sorry, I didn't see the last part originally. I don't think 'outside of > class Parrot' is well-defined in Python. Does '_private' have to be a > member of 'Parrot', an instance of 'Parrot', or the calling instance of > 'Parrot', before entering the calling scope, or at the time the call is > made? Since many of these can change on the fly, there's more than one > consistent interpretation to the syntax.
This is a good point. Any hypothetical move to make Python (or a Python- like language) stricter about private/protected attributes would need to deal with that question. I don't have to worry about that until somebody writes a PEP :) -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
