On Tue, Mar 04, 2014 at 11:03:35AM +0200, David Townshend wrote:
My suggestion was to use c'x + 3' as an effective replacement for compile('x + 3', '', 'eval'). The use of a literal rather than compile would solve a few of the issues raised in Steven's original post. I don't see why it would be any more misleading to eval a code literal than a compiled string.
Agreed.
I did suggest making it callable (i.e. thunk(x=3), but on second thoughts I'm not sure that's a good idea. It adds complexity without and real benefit over eval.
I don't think calling the thunk is the right API. If we have this sort of functionality, I want calling a thunk to be treated like any other expression, thunk[0] or thunk+1. I don't want it to mean "evaluate this thunk". An example: thunk = `lambda x: x + y` def func(y, obj): return obj + 1 result = func(50, thunk(100)) (This is not a use-case, just an illustration.) In this example, the expression "thunk(1000)" is delayed until inside the func scope. Inside that scope, we evaluate this expression: (lambda x: x + y)(100) where y has the value 50, and bind the result of this to the name obj. The lambda part returns a closure, and calling that closure with argument 100 returns 150, so this is equivalent to binding obj=150. Then func continues, evaluates "obj + 1", and returns 151. -- Steven