[New-bugs-announce] [issue11146] Add a feature similar to C++ "using some_namespace"

[Manuel Bärenz]

New submission from Manuel Bärenz <manuel at enigmage.de>:

In C++, the the approach to the namespace problem is having different namespaces that should not contain different definitions of the same name.
Members of a namespace can be accessed explicitly by e.g. calling "std::cout << etc." or "using namespace std; cout << etc."

I understand Pythons approach to be "objects can be used as namespaces and their attributes are the names they contain". I find this a very beautiful way of solving the issue, but it has a downside, in my opinion, because it lacks the "using" directive from C++.

If the object is a module, we can of course do "from mymodule import spam, eggs". But if it is not a module, this does not work.

Consider for example:

class Spam(object):
    def frobnicate(self):
        self.eggs = self.buy_eggs()
        self.scrambled = self.scramble(self.eggs)
        return self.scrambled > 42

This could be easier to implement and read if we had something like:

class Spam(object):
    def frobnicate(self):
        using self:
            eggs = buy_eggs()
            scrambled = scramble(eggs)
            return scrambled > 42

Of course this opens a lot of conceptual questions like how should this using block behave if self doesn't have an attribute called "eggs", but I think it is worth considering.

----------
messages: 128153
nosy: turion
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: Add a feature similar to C++ "using some_namespace"
type: feature request

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue11146>
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