[New-bugs-announce] [issue3323] Clarify __slots__ behaviour when inheriting

[Andy]

New submission from Andy <strangefeatures at users.sourceforge.net>:

Suggest clarification on behaviour of the __slots__ attribute when
inheriting from classes that don't have __slots__ defined. Obviously the
superclass automatically creates __dict__, and it seems the subclass
inherits this. I presume this is expected behaviour, but I think it
would be worth clarifying in the 'Notes on using __slots__' section -
perhaps add something like:

"If you define __slots__ on a subclass when its superclass doesn't have
__slots__ defined, the superclass will automatically create a __dict__
instance which will be inherited by the subclass (as will other instance
attributes). Defining __slots__ on the subclass doesn't block this
inheritance."

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assignee: georg.brandl
components: Documentation
messages: 69460
nosy: georg.brandl, strangefeatures
severity: normal
status: open
title: Clarify __slots__ behaviour when inheriting
type: feature request
versions: Python 2.2, Python 2.2.1, Python 2.2.2, Python 2.2.3, Python 2.3, Python 2.4, Python 2.5, Python 2.6, Python 2.7

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue3323>
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