On Jun 19, 2019, at 16:57, Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Jun 20, 2019 at 8:14 AM Andrew Barnert via Python-ideas <python-ideas@python.org> wrote:
… x = y would mean this:
try: xval = globals()['x'] result = xval.__iassign__(y) except (LookupErrorr, AttributeError): result = y globals()['x'] = result
... Notice that in my pseudocode above, I cheated—obviously the xval = and result = lines are not supposed to recursively call the same pseudocode, but to directly store a value in new temporary local variable.
I'm rather curious how this would behave in a class context. Consider the following code:
num = 10; lst = [20, 30, 40] class Spam: num += 1 lst += [50] print(num, lst, Spam.num, Spam.lst)
Do you know what this will do in current Python, and what is your intention for this situation if we add a third name that uses the new __iassign__ protocol?
At least with CPython, I’m 99% sure that (unless you do something weird like exec this class body with custom namespaces) you’ll get 10, [20,30,40,50], 11, and [20,30,40,50]. The reason is that each += will compile to LOAD_NAME/INPLACE_ADD/STORE_NAME, and LOAD_NAME will fall back to the global when executed. I’m not quite as sure that Python the language definition requires that behavior, but I’d be a little surprised if any major implementation did anything different. So, I suppose this could be a problem: sig = Signal() # a type that defines __iassign__ class Spam: sig = 2 Here, the plausible alternative to calling sig.__iassign__(2) and then creating a Spam.sig that binds the result (which should be identical to sig, as with lst above) isn’t a NameError, but creating an Unrelated Spam.sig bound to 2. And people might actually want or expect that. I’m not sure which one people _would_ want or expect. The former is certainly easier to implement, but that isn’t a good reason to choose it. I think we’d need a realistic example of where this is actually useful before trying to decide what it should do. Anyway, since I’m proposing this idea specifically so it can be rejected, I don’t need to come up with a good answer; the fact that it’s potentially confusing In this context is just another reason to reject it, right? :)