Python-ideas March 2020

python-ideas@python.org

83 participants
50 discussions

Make `del x` an expression evaluating to `x`

by Eric Wieser

TL;DR: should we make `del x` an expression that returns the value of `x`. ## Motivation I noticed yesterday that `itertools.combinations` has an optimization for when the returned tuple has no remaining ref-counts, and reuses it - namely, the following code: >>> for v in itertools.combinations([1, 2, 3], 1): ... print(id(v)) ... del v # without this, the optimization can't take place 2500926199840 2500926199840 2500926199840 will print the same id three times. However, when used as a list comprehension, the optimization can't step in, and I have no way of using the `del` keyword >>> [id(v) for v in itertools.combinations([1, 2, 3], 1)] [2500926200992, 2500926199072, 2500926200992] `itertools.combinations` is not the only place to make this optimization - parts of numpy use it too, allowing a = (b * c) + d to elide the temporary `b*c`. This elision can't happen with the spelling bc = b * c a = bc + d My suggestion would be to make `del x` an expression, with semantics "unbind the name `x`, and evaluate to its value". This would allow: >>> [id(del v) for v in itertools.combinations([1, 2, 3], 1)] [2500926200992, 2500926200992, 2500926200992] and bc = b * c a = (del bc) + d # in C++, this would be `std::move(bc) + d` ## Why a keyword Unbinding a name is not something that a user would expect a function to do. Functions operate on values, not names, so `move(bc)` would be surprising. ## Why `del` `del` already has "unbind this name" semantics, and allow it to be used as an expression would break no existing code. `move x` might be more understandable, but adding new keywords is expensive ## Optional extension For consistency, `x = (del foo.attr)` and `x = (del foo[i])` could also become legal expressions, and `__delete__`, `__delattr__`, and `__delitem__` would now have return values. Existing types would be free to continue to return `None`.

1 month, 3 weeks

PYTHONLOGGING env variable

by Bar Harel

Another idea I've had that may be of use: PYTHONLOGGING environment variable. Setting PYTHONLOGGING to any log level or level name will initialize logging.basicConfig() with that appropriate level. Another option would be that -x dev or a different -x logging will initialize basic config. Will be useful mostly for debugging purposes instead of temporarily modifying the code. Kinda surprised it doesn't exist tbh. Bar Harel

2 months

Explicitly defining a string buffer object (aka StringIO += operator)

by Paul Sokolovsky

Hello, 1. Intro -------- It is a well-known anti-pattern to use a string as a string buffer, to construct a long (perhaps very long) string piece-wise. A running example is: buf = "" for i in range(50000): buf += "foo" print(buf) An alternative is to use a buffer-like object explicitly designed for incremental updates, which for Python is io.StringIO: buf = io.StringIO() for i in range(50000): buf.write("foo") print(buf.getvalue()) As can be seen, this requires changing the way buffer is constructed (usually in one place), the way buffer value is taken (usually in one place), but more importantly, it requires changing each line which adds content to a buffer, and there can be many of those for more complex algorithms, leading to a code less clear than the original code, requiring noise-like changes, and complicating updates to 3rd-party code which needs optimization. To address this, this RFC proposes to add an __iadd__ method (i.e. implementing "+=" operator) to io.StringIO and io.BytesIO objects, making it the exact alias of .write() method. This will allow for the code very parallel to the original str-using code: buf = io.StringIO() for i in range(50000): buf += "foo" print(buf.getvalue()) This will still require updates for buffer construction/getting value, but that's usually 2 lines. But it will leave the rest of code intact, and not obfuscate the original content construction algorithm. 2. Performance Discussion ------------------------- The motivation for this change (of promoting usage of io.StringIO, by making it look&feel more like str) is performance. But is it really a problem? Turns out, it is such a pervasive anti-pattern, that recent versions on CPython3 have a special optimization for it. Let's use following script for testing: --------- import timeit import io def string(): sb = u"" for i in range(50000): sb += u"a" def strio(): sb = io.StringIO() for i in range(50000): sb.write(u"a") print(timeit.timeit(string, number=10)) print(timeit.timeit(strio, number=10)) --------- With CPython3.6 the result is: $ python3.6 str_iadd-vs-StringIO_write.py 0.03350826998939738 0.033480543992482126 In other words, there's no difference between usage of str vs StringIO. But it wasn't always like that, with CPython2.7.17: $ python2.7 str_iadd-vs-StringIO_write.py 2.10510993004 0.0399420261383 But Python2 is dead, right? Ok, let's see how Jython3 and IronPython3 fair. To my surprise, there're no (public releases of) such. Both projects sit firmly in the Python2 territory. So, let's try them: $ java -jar jython-standalone-2.7.2.jar str_iadd-vs-StringIO_write.py 10.8869998455 1.74700021744 Sadly, I wasn't able to get to run IronPython.2.7.9.zip on my Linux system, so I used the online version at https://tio.run/#python2-iron (after discovering that https://ironpython.net/try/ is dead). 2.7.9 (IronPython 2.7.9 (2.7.9.0) on Mono 4.0.30319.42000 (64-bit)) 26.2704391479 1.55628967285 So, it seems that rumors of Python2 being dead are somewhat exaggerated. Let's try a project which tries to provide "missing migration path" between Python2 and Python3 - https://github.com/naftaliharris/tauthon Tauthon 2.8.1+ (heads/master:7da5b76f5b, Mar 29 2020, 18:05:05) $ tauthon str_iadd-vs-StringIO_write.py 0.792158126831 0.0467159748077 Whoa, tauthon seems to be faithful to its promise of being half-way between CPython2 and CPython2. Anyway, let's get back to Python3. Fortunately, there's PyPy3, so let's try that: $ ./pypy3.6-v7.3.0-linux64/bin/pypy3 str_iadd-vs-StringIO_write.py 0.5423258490045555 0.01754526497097686 Let's not forget little Python brothers and continue with MicroPython 1.12 (https://github.com/micropython/micropython): $ micropython str_iadd-vs-StringIO_write.py 41.63419413566589 0.08073711395263672 Pycopy 3.0.6 (https://github.com/pfalcon/pycopy): $ pycopy str_iadd-vs-StringIO_write.py 25.03198313713074 0.0713810920715332 I also wanted to include TinyPy (http://tinypy.org/) and Snek (https://github.com/keith-packard/snek) in the shootout, but both (seem to) lack StringIO object. These results can be summarized as follows: of more than half-dozen Python implementations, CPython3 is the only implementation which optimizes for the dubious usage of an immutable string type as an accumulating character buffer. For all other implementations, unintended usage of str incurs overhead of about one order of magnitude, 2 order of magnitude for implementations optimized for particular usecases (this includes PyPy optimized for speed vs MicroPython/Pycopy optimized for small code size and memory usage). Consequently, other implementations have 2 choices: 1. Succumb to applying the same mis-optimization for string type as CPython3. (With the understanding that for speed-optimized projects, implementing mis-optimizations will eat into performance budget, and for memory-optimized projects, it likely will lead to noticeable memory bloat.) 2. Struggle against inefficient-by-concept usage, and promote usage of the correct object types for incremental construction of string content. This would require improving ergonomics of existing string buffer object, to make its usage less painful for both writing new code and refactoring existing. As you may imagine, the purpose of this RFC is to raise awareness and try to make headway with the choice 2. 3. Scope Creep, aka "Possible Future Work" ------------------------------------------ The purpose of this RFC is specifically to propose to apply *single* simple, obvious change. .__iadd__ is just an alias for .write, period. However, for completeness, it makes sense to consider both alternatives and where the path of adding "str-like functionality" may lead us. 1. One alternative to patching StringIO would be to introduce a completely different type, e.g. StringBuf. But that largely would be "creating more entities without necessity", given that StringIO already offers needed buffering functionality, and just needs a little touch of polish with interface. If 2 classes like StringIO and StringBuf existed, it would be extra quiz to explain difference between them and why they both exist. 2. On the other hand, this RFC fixates on the output buffering. But just image how much fun can be done re: input buffers! E.g., we can define "buf[0]" to have semantics of "tmp = buf.tell(); res = buf.read(1); buf.seek(tmp); return res". Ditto for .startswith(), etc., etc. So, well... This RFC is about making .__iadd__ to be an alias for .write, and cover with this output buffering usecase. Whoever may have interest in dealing with input buffer shortcuts would need to provide a separate RFC, with separate usecases and argumentation. 4. (Self-)Criticism and Risks. ------------------------------ 1. The biggest "criticism" I see is a response a-la "there's no problem with CPython3, so there's nothing to fix". This is related to a bigger questions "whether a life outside CPython exists", or put more formally, where's the border between Python-the-language and CPython-the-implementation. To address this point, I tried to collect performance stats for a pretty wide array of Python implementations. 2. Another potential criticism is that this may open a scope creep to add more str-like functionality to classes which classically expose a stream interface. Paragraph 3.2 is dedicated specifically to address this point, by invoking hopefully the best-practice approach: request to focus on the currently proposed feature, which requires very little changes for arguably noticeable improvements. (At the same time, for an abstract possibility of this change to be found positive, this may influence further proposals from interested parties). 3. Implementing the required functionality is pretty easy with a user subclass: class MyStringBuf(io.StringIO): def __iadd__(self, s): self.write(s) return self Voila. The problem is performance. Calling such .__iadd__() method implementing in Python is 3 times slower than calling .write() directly (with CPython3.6). But paradigmatic problem is even bigger: this RFC seeks to establish the best practice of using explicitly designed for the purpose type with ergonomic interface. Saying that "we lack such clearly designated type out of the box, but if you figure out that it's a problem (if you do figure that out), you can easily resolve that on your side, albeit with a performance hit when compared with it being provided out of the box" - that's not really welcoming or ergonomic. 5. Prior Art ------------ As many things related to Python, the idea is not new. I found thread from 2006 dedicated to it: https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2006-January/403480.html (strangely, there's some mixup in archives, and "thread view" shows another message as thread starter, though it's not: https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2006-January/357453.html) . The discussion there seemed to be without clear resolution and has been swamped into discussion of unicode handling complexities in Python2 and implementation details of "StringIO" vs "cStringIO" modules (both of which were deprecated in favor of "io"). -- Best regards, Paul mailto:pmiscml@gmail.com

3 months, 3 weeks

SerialExecutor for concurrent.futures + Convenience constructor

by Jonathan Crall

I'd like to propose an improvement to `concurrent.futures`. The library's ThreadPoolExecutor and ProcessPoolExecutor are excellent tools, but there is currently no mechanism for configuring which type of executor you want. Also, there is no duck-typed class that behaves like an executor, but does its processing in serial. Often times a develop will want to run a task in parallel, but depending on the environment they may want to disable threading or process execution. To address this I use a utility called a `SerialExecutor` which shares an API with ThreadPoolExecutor/ProcessPoolExecutor but executes processes sequentially in the same python thread: ```python import concurrent.futures class SerialFuture( concurrent.futures.Future): """ Non-threading / multiprocessing version of future for drop in compatibility with concurrent.futures. """ def __init__(self, func, *args, **kw): super(SerialFuture, self).__init__() self.func = func self.args = args self.kw = kw # self._condition = FakeCondition() self._run_count = 0 # fake being finished to cause __get_result to be called self._state = concurrent.futures._base.FINISHED def _run(self): result = self.func(*self.args, **self.kw) self.set_result(result) self._run_count += 1 def set_result(self, result): """ Overrides the implementation to revert to pre python3.8 behavior """ with self._condition: self._result = result self._state = concurrent.futures._base.FINISHED for waiter in self._waiters: waiter.add_result(self) self._condition.notify_all() self._invoke_callbacks() def _Future__get_result(self): # overrides private __getresult method if not self._run_count: self._run() return self._result class SerialExecutor(object): """ Implements the concurrent.futures API around a single-threaded backend Example: >>> with SerialExecutor() as executor: >>> futures = [] >>> for i in range(100): >>> f = executor.submit(lambda x: x + 1, i) >>> futures.append(f) >>> for f in concurrent.futures.as_completed(futures): >>> assert f.result() > 0 >>> for i, f in enumerate(futures): >>> assert i + 1 == f.result() """ def __enter__(self): return self def __exit__(self, ex_type, ex_value, tb): pass def submit(self, func, *args, **kw): return SerialFuture(func, *args, **kw) def shutdown(self): pass ``` In order to make it easy to choose the type of parallel (or serial) backend with minimal code changes I use the following "Executor" wrapper class (although if this was integrated into concurrent.futures the name would need to change to something better): ```python class Executor(object): """ Wrapper around a specific executor. Abstracts Serial, Thread, and Process Executor via arguments. Args: mode (str, default='thread'): either thread, serial, or process max_workers (int, default=0): number of workers. If 0, serial is forced. """ def __init__(self, mode='thread', max_workers=0): from concurrent import futures if mode == 'serial' or max_workers == 0: backend = SerialExecutor() elif mode == 'thread': backend = futures.ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers=max_workers) elif mode == 'process': backend = futures.ProcessPoolExecutor(max_workers=max_workers) else: raise KeyError(mode) self.backend = backend def __enter__(self): return self.backend.__enter__() def __exit__(self, ex_type, ex_value, tb): return self.backend.__exit__(ex_type, ex_value, tb) def submit(self, func, *args, **kw): return self.backend.submit(func, *args, **kw) def shutdown(self): return self.backend.shutdown() ``` So in summary, I'm proposing to add a SerialExecutor and SerialFuture class as an alternative to the ThreadPool / ProcessPool executors, and I'm also advocating for some sort of "ParamatrizedExecutor", where the user can construct it in "thread", "process", or "serial" model. -- -Jon

3 months, 3 weeks

Compound with .. else statement

by Jimmy Thrasibule

Hi, In Python, there are multiple [compound statements](https://docs.python.org/3/reference/compound_stmts.html) with the `else` keyword. For example: ``` for x in iterable: if x == sentinel: break else: print("Sentinel not found.") ``` or: ``` try: do_something_sensitive() except MyError: print("Oops!") else: print("We're all safe.") ``` In my situation, I would like to mix the `with` statement with `else`. In this case I would like that if no exception is raised within the `with` to run the `else` part. For example: ``` with my_context(): do_something_sensitive() else: print("We're all safe.") ``` Now imagine that in my `try .. except` block I have some heavy setup to do before `do_something_sensitive()` and some heavy cleanup when the exception occurs. I'd like my context manager to do the preparation work, execute the body, and cleanup. Or execute my else block only if there is no exception. Is there already a way to accomplish this in Python or can this be a nice to have? Regards, Jimmy

4 months

PEP 9999: Retire animal-unfriendly language

by Gerrit Holl

(needs a sponsor) latest version at https://github.com/gerritholl/peps/blob/animal-friendly/pep-9999.rst PEP: 9999 Title: Retire animal-unfriendly language Author: Gerrit Holl <gerrit.holl(a)gmail.com> Discussions-To: python-ideas(a)python.org Status: Draft Type: Informational Content-Type: text/x-rst Created: 01-Apr-2020 Post-History: 01-Apr-2020 Sponsor: Abstract ======== Python has long used metasyntactic variables that are based on the consumption of meat and dairy products, such as "spam", "ham", and "eggs". This language is not considerate to pigs or chicken and violates the spirit of the Code of Conduct. This PEP proposes to retire the use of those names in official Python documentation and source code and to recommend users of Python to do the same. Motivation and Rationale ======================== Estimates for the number of animals slaughtered for meat every year vary, but `worldindata`_ estimates around 80 billion individuals. Farmed animals are often kept in small cages with little to no access to daylight, suffer stress during life and slaughter, or are otherwise systematically mistreated. The `Python Code of Conduct`_ describes that community members are open, considerate, and respectful. The Python standard library and documentation contain numerous references to meat or dairy based food products that are not respectful to our fellow inhabitants of planet Earth. Examples include "spam", "bacon", and "eggs". To align the language use in the standard library and documentation with the Code of Conduct, use of such language should be retired. Current practice ================ There is a widespread tradition in the Python standard library, the documentation, and the wider community, to include references to Monty Pythons Flying Circus. The use of "spam", "bacon", "sausage", and "eggs" can be traced back to the `"Spam" sketch`_ originally broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on 8 September 1972. In this sketch, a couple are trying to order food in a diner where all items contain spam. The woman does not like spam and wants to order food without spam. A group of horned vikings then sing about the wonderful spam. To get an overview of the usage in the current standard library, the command ``cat $(find . -name '*.py') | grep -oi term | wc -l`` was used. This showed 2615 occurences for spam, 593 for ham (this include some false positives, among other reasons due to references to people whose name innociously contains the substring ham), 517 for eggs, 57 for bacon, and 10 for sausage. Searching ``*.rst`` in the documentation revealed 391 occurrences for spam, 82 for ham, 96 for eggs, 28 for bacon, and 10 for sausage. The source code for cpython revealed just 2 usages for spam and 1 for eggs. Proposed alternatives ===================== Keeping with the good practice of referencing sketches from Monty Python's Flying Circus, this PEP proposes to adopt the fruits mentioned in the `"Self-Defence Against Fresh Fruit" sketch`_: * raspberry (not currently in use) * banana (68 times in standard library) * apricot (not currently in use) * pineapple (8 times in standard library) * peach (once in standard library) * redcurrant (not currently in use) * damson (not currently in use) * prune (23 times in standard library) Other possible alternatives keeping with food items: * salad (occurs once in standard library) * aubergine (referred to in the spam sketch) * shallot (the same) * tofu (vegan protein alternative) Specification ============= For the reasons mentioned in the rationale, all references to meat or dairy products shall be removed from the Python standard library, the documentation, and the cpython source code. The wider Python community is recommended to follow this practice. In core Python: * Programmers SHALL NOT use the metasyntactic variables "spam", "ham", "bacon", or "sausage", neither as variable names, nor in example strings, nor in documentation. * Programmers SHALL NOT use the metasyntactic variable "eggs" in context with food items, but may still use it in context of other body parts. Prohibited: ``["salad", "eggs"]``. Allowed: ``["ovaries", "pouch", "eggs"]``. * Programmers SHALL NOT use any other metasyntactic variable that is unfriendly to animals. The wider Python community is encouraged to adopt these practices as well, but the continued use of animal-unfriendly metasyntactic variables will not be considered a violation of the code of conduct. Rejected ideas ============== The authors carefully considered the widespread use of the word "bug" in the meaning of a source code error. Insects including bugs play a crucial role in ecosystems around the world, and it is not fair to blame them for an error that can only be the programmer's. However, the use of the word "bug" for a source code error is too much ingrained into daily use, it far predates the Python community, is not limited to the Python community, and the word "bug" is less unfriendly than "spam", "ham", or "bacon". Therefore, the word "bug" may still be used. Reference Implementation ======================== The author promises to provide a reference implementation for Python 3.10, should this PEP be accepted. References ========== .. _worldindata: https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production .. _Python code of conduct: https://www.python.org/psf/conduct/ .. _"Spam" sketch: http://www.montypython.net/scripts/spam.php .. _"Self-Defence Against Fresh Fruit" sketch: http://www.montypython.net/scripts/fruit.php Copyright ========= This document is placed in the public domain or under the CC0-1.0-Universal license, whichever is more permissive. .. Local Variables: mode: indented-text indent-tabs-mode: nil sentence-end-double-space: t fill-column: 70 coding: utf-8 End:

4 months

returning a namedtuple on dict.items()

by Nadav Wexler

Hi, That is my first post here, I hope it's the right place for it. so I was using some dicts had the following code: env = dict(t for t in os.environ.items() if 'SUBSTRING' not in t[0]) and I thought: It could have really been nice if i could do: env = dict(t for t in os.environ.items() if 'SUBSTRING' not in t.key) now I see that environ is not exactly a dict, but i think this is useful for all dictionary types. on the other hand, dicts are everywhere and i'm not sure about the performance impact of this for those that just ignore the access by attribute. of course, a matching t.value must be in place as well. ;) I would have opened a PR just to try out, but I feel this is so in the core that I'd first like to hear some comments. I was searching if anyone else had this idea before but couldn't find anything. Thanks, Nadav

4 months, 1 week

Re: PEP 9999: Retire animal-unfriendly language

by Michael Christensen

We've got to be considerate of other languages: What if, for example, a German speaker is looking for example code in English documentation and sees the word "speck"? He/she will think it means bacon and will be offended! Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S® 6, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone Get Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/ghei36>

4 months, 1 week

dunder methods for encoding & prettiness aware formal & informal representations

by Steve Jorgensen

This is really an idea for an idea. I'm not sure what the ideal dunder method names or APIs should be. Encoding awareness: The informal (`str`) representations of `inf` and `-inf` are "inf" and "-inf", and that seems appropriate as a known-safe value, but if we're writing the representation to a stream, and the stream has a Unicode encoding, then those might prefer to represent themselves as "∞" and "-∞". If there were a dunder method for informal representation to which the destination stream was passed, then the object could decide how to represent itself based on the properties of the stream. Prettiness awareness: It would be nice if an object could have control of how it is represented when pretty-printed. If there is any way for that to be done now, it is not at all evident from the pprint module documentation. It would be nice if there were some method that, if implemented for the object, would be used to allow the object to tell the pretty printer to treat it is a composite with starting text, component objects, and ending text. Additional thoughts & open questions: Perhaps there should only be stream awareness for informal representation and prettiness awareness for formal representation (separate concepts and APIs) or perhaps both ideas are applicable to both kinds of representation. Is it better for a stream-aware representation method to return the value to be written to the stream or to directly append its representation to that stream?

4 months, 1 week

pretty-printing in the terminal

by Per Bothner

Inspired by the LWN article (https://lwn.net/Articles/815265/) about enhanced pretty-printing, I implemented a modified repr/displayhook that makes uses of the builtin pretty-printing of the DomTerm (https://domterm.org) terminal emulator. See this screenshot http://domterm.org/images/python-pretty1.png which shows the *same* REPL session displayed in two "panes" of different widths. More information here: http://domterm.org/Python-tips.html The idea is that Python handles *what* to print, but the terminal emulator (or IDE like Jupyter or ipython) decides where to break the lines, add indentation, etc. The terminal knows the line-width and can dynamically re-format the output if the width changes - even for previously-printed output (and even for an exited python command). This is just like many terminals will automatically re-wrap over-long lines - but on steroids. This required a rather small amount of code to insert some extra escape sequences to delimit grouping, optional line-breaks, and indentation - see here: https://github.com/PerBothner/DomTerm/blob/master/tools/python/domterm/util… I'm not suggesting pprint should depend on the terminal being able to do pretty-printing, but I suggest that at the least type-specific pretty-printers should use overrideable methods to define grouping and optional newlines. That would allow an IDE or terminal-specific code to by-pass the Python pretty-printing and instead have the terminal/IDE do it. As an example you can see how Kawa does it - look for the writeList method in https://gitlab.com/kashell/Kawa/-/blob/master/gnu/kawa/functions/DisplayFor… This calls conceptually abstract methods like startLogicalBlock and endLogicalBlock (to delimit groups) and writeSpaceFill (to mark optional newline). Going beyond pretty-printing, I've been thinking about a "data explorer" where you click on buttons to hide/show more detail. I'm most familiar with this from the JavaScript consoles of Firefox and Chrome. I implemented a "finite" version of this idea for Kawa - see here: https://domterm.org/saved/dt-prettynested.html Note the triangles are clickable butoons that hide or show detail (and how this is integrated with pretty-printing). This prototype only handles the case where all the displayable data is printed, even though some may be initially hidden. To explore larger or circular data structures you'd want a protocol where the terminal/IDE can request more data. (I have a rough design for this, but that is a different discussion. Let me know if this would be interesting.) (I am not primarily a Python programmer, but it's been fun figuring out how to implement Python/DomTerm integration.) -- --Per Bothner per(a)bothner.com http://per.bothner.com/

4 months, 1 week

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Python-ideas March 2020