[pypy-dev] improve error message when missing 'self' in method definition

[Carl Friedrich Bolz]

Hi all,

I read this paper today about common mistakes that Python beginners
make:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/307088989_Some_Trouble_with_Transparency_An_Analysis_of_Student_Errors_with_Object-oriented_Python

The most common one by far is forgetting the "self" parameter in the
method definition (which also still happens to me regularly). The error
message is not particularly enlightening, if you don't quite understand
the explicit self in Python.


So I wonder whether we should print a better error message, something
like this:

$ cat m.py
class A(object):
    def f(x):
        return self.x
A().f(1)

$ pypy m.py
Traceback (application-level):
  File "m.py", line 4 in <module>
    A().f(1)
TypeError: f() takes exactly 1 argument (2 given). Did you forget 'self'
in the function definition?


It's a bit the question how clever we would like this to be to reduce
false positives, see the attached patch for a very simple approach.

Anyone have opinions?

Cheers,

Carl Friedrich
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