I think you're fighting windmills. Like most special operations (e.g. __add__), a __call__ attribute on the object does not work, i.e. it does not make the object callable. E.g.

$ python3
Python 3.5.0a2 (v3.5.0a2:0337bd7ebcb6, Mar  8 2015, 01:12:06)
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5666) (dot 3)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> class C: pass
...
>>> c = C()
>>> c.__call__ = lambda *a: a
>>> c()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: 'C' object is not callable
>>> callable(c)
False
>>> hasattr(c, '__call__')
True
>>>

On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 1:45 PM, Ionel Cristian Mărieș <contact@ionelmc.ro> wrote:

Hello,

I had an issue today with the `callable` builtin because it doesn't correctly check that the object has the __call__ attribute.

Effectively what `callable(a)` does is `hasattr(type(a), '__call__')` but that's not very straightforward. A more straightforward implementation would do something like `hasattr(a, '__call__')`.

For example:

Python 3.4.3 (v3.4.3:9b73f1c3e601, Feb 24 2015, 22:44:40) [MSC v.1600 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> callable
<built-in function callable>
>>> class A:
...  @property
...  def __call__(self):
...   raise AttributeError('go away')
...
>>> a = A()
>>> a
<__main__.A object at 0x000000000365B5C0>
>>> a.__call__
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 4, in __call__
AttributeError: go away
>>> callable(a)
True
>>> # it should be False :(

​So it boils down to this:

>>> hasattr(a, "__call__")
False
>>> hasattr(type(a), "__call__")
True

My issue is that I didn't call `callable(type(a))` but just `callable(a)`. Clearly mismatching what happens when you do hasattr(a, "__call__").

To put in contrast, this is legal and clearly indicates the descriptors are being used as expected:

>>> class B:
...  @property
...  def __call__(self):
...   return lambda: 1
...
>>> b = B()
>>> b()
1

​There​

​'s some more discussing in issue 23990​

​ where I get slightly angry, sorry.​

​So were is this change actually useful? Proxies! Since new-style objects in Python you cannot really proxy the callable aspect of objects, because `callable` just checks that a field is set in a C struct.​

​ This is fairly inconvenient because you have to know upfront if your target is going to be callable or not.​

Thanks,
-- Ionel Cristian Mărieș, http://blog.ionelmc.ro

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