On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 9:23 AM Eric V. Smith <eric@trueblade.com> wrote:

On 3/16/2021 7:01 AM, Simão Afonso @ Powertools Tech wrote:
>> The problem is that if you have 1 normal parameter and 10 keyword-only
>> ones, you'd be forced to say:
>>
>> @dataclasses.dataclass
>> class LotsOfFields:
>> a: Any
>> b: Any = field(kw_only=True, default=0)
>> c: Any = field(kw_only=True, default='foo')
>> d: Any = field(kw_only=True)
>> e: Any = field(kw_only=True, default=0.0)
>> f: Any = field(kw_only=True)
>> g: Any = field(kw_only=True, default=())
>> h: Any = field(kw_only=True, default='bar')
>> i: Any = field(kw_only=True, default=3+4j)
>> j: Any = field(kw_only=True, default=10)
>> k: Any = field(kw_only=True)
>>
>> That's way too verbose for me.

Here's another option I just thought of, that might have some strengths:

@dataclasses.dataclass
class LotsOfFields:

# first member assumed to be kw_or_posit unless marked otherwise
a: Any

# start kw only here because `mark= dataclasses.KW_ONLY`
b: Any = field(default=0, mark=dataclasses.KW_ONLY)

# all members following above line continue to be kw_only
     c: Any = 'foo'
     d: Any
     e: Any = 0.0
     f: Any
     g: Any = ()
     h: Any = 'bar'
     i: Any = 3+4j
     j: Any = 10
     k: Any

I changed the kw argument name from `kw_only` to `mark`.

The idea is that every supplied member (above, members c through k) is assumed to have the same `mark` as the most recently explicitly designated field (above, member b). Or, if there has not yet been an explicitly designated `mark` for a member, the first field (above, member a) is assumed to be `dataclasses.KW_OR_POSIT` (or whatever other singleton name makes sense).

In this way we only have to use the field() call once, we can go back and forth, we eliminate a line like `_: dataclasses.KW_OPTIONAL` that to some people might be a bit inscrutable, and we leave the door open to support positional arguments in the future (perhaps through something like `mark= dataclasses.KW_OR_POSIT`) if it becomes desirable for some reason.