On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 13:43:38 +0200, Fredrik Lundh wrote: >> If I wanted to inspect the value of cache, where would I find it? > > nowhere. at least no officially; see "Rebinding names in enclosing > scopes" in the design document for a discussion: > > http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0227.html
That's interesting to read, and does clarify a few things that weren't straight in my head, but I notice that the author, Jeremy Hylton, distinguishes between Python creating function definitions that are closures from those that aren't: "Each def or lambda expression that is executed will create a closure if the body of the function or any contained function has free variables." Presumably that means that if there are no free variables, no closure is created. >> That assumes that cache can be seen in this way. If it can't, is this a >> way to create "really private" variables in Python? > > no, because Python doesn't prevent you from digging into the > internals: > > http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/440515 That's blackest voodoo, and as the warning says, could cause Python to sigfault if you get the opcodes wrong. I think that this is close enough to "really private" to satisfy most people. Maybe even Paul Rubin *wink* -- Steven. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
