Ron Garret wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Alex Martelli) wrote: > >> > One other question I did not get answered: is there any >> > simple example of a Pythonic use of __slots__ that does NOT >> > involve the creation of **many** instances. >> >> Since the only benefit of __slots__ is saving a few bytes per instance, >> it's not worth the bother unless there are many instances -- so, the >> answer is 'no'. > > I can think of at least two other benefits to using __slots__: > > 1. If you have a typo in an attribute assignment you get an exception > instead of a latent downstream bug.
Only if all classes in the inheritance define __slots__, and don't include __dict__ in their slots. In particular, it means you can never rely on this in any code you write which inherits from a library class over which you have no control. In other words, it is such a risky thing to depend on that you would be much better never to rely on it. Try writing some unit tests instead. > > 2. Implicit documentation. Explicit is better than implicit. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
