Terry Reedy wrote: > On 1/15/2010 3:37 PM, Sean DiZazzo wrote: >> Should the following be legal? >> >>>>> class TEST(object): pass >> ... >>>>> t = TEST() >>>>> setattr(t, "", "123") >>>>> getattr(t, "") >> '123' > > Different people have different opinions as to whether setattr (and > correspondingly getattr) should be strict or permissive as to whether or > not the 'name' string is a legal name. CPython is permissive. The > rationale is that checking would take time and prevent possible > legitimate use cases. > > CPython is actually looser than this. Try > > t.__dict__[1] = 2 > > Now there is an 'attribute' whose 'name' is an int! -- and which can > only be accessed via the same trick of delving into the internals. This > is, however, implementation behavior that would go away if an > implementation used string-key-only dicts to store attributes. > Good question, great answer!
regards Steve -- Steve Holden +1 571 484 6266 +1 800 494 3119 PyCon is coming! Atlanta, Feb 2010 http://us.pycon.org/ Holden Web LLC http://www.holdenweb.com/ UPCOMING EVENTS: http://holdenweb.eventbrite.com/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
