Michele Simionato wrote: > Still it turns something which is a function into an object and > you lose the docstring and the signature. pydoc will not be too > happy with this approach.
Duncan Booth wrote:
I don't know why Mikael wants to use a class rather than a function but if he wants to save state between calls this isn't going to help.
I've never used decorators before, and that's the main reason for my confusion. I have found myself in a situation where I think that decorators is the way to go. So I tried to find information about how to write them the usual way: Googling and browsing documentation. I found examples using both functions and classes, but not much explanation of what's going on, especially not in the class case. I didn't find any arguments for favouring any of those alternatives. Actually, most examples I found did not even include the definition of the actual decorator or any information about where they might come from, only the @-row.
Based on the above observations, I assumed that both alternatives were equally possible. The first answers I got here also led me to believe that that was the case. My understanding is that in most cases, you can use a callable object instead of a function with little or no practical difference, except the syntax of its definition. In my eyes, a class definition looks nicer and is more readable than a nested function. Therefore, I tend to define a class with a __call__ method and helper methods instead of nested functions, if I find the need.
Practicality beats purity, and it seem like using a class for decoration is a lot more hassle than using a function. I fold.
/MiO -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
