[Python-3000] isinstance(., Iterable) vs lookup('__iter__') != None Re: *View in abc.py not inheriting Iterable Re: PEP 3119 - Introducing Abstract Base Classes

[Guido van Rossum]

On 4/28/07, Samuele Pedroni <pedronis at openendsystems.com> wrote:
> Guido van Rossum wrote:
> > On 4/28/07, Samuele Pedroni <pedronis at openendsystems.com> wrote:
> >> Shouldn't the various *View in abc.py be Iterables (inherit from
> >> Iterable) ?
> >
> > Oops, it looks like this is a mess. There are two classes
> > _MappingView. Ignore them for the sake of the PEP. I'll clean them up
> > later. We probably need fewer mapping classes, nor more...
> >
> It seems that something that defines __iter__ should also subclass Iterable,
> in this kind of situation where the special method is unique enough it seems
> quite repetitive to have to do both. It seems easy to forget to subclass.
>
> Shouldn't now that there are isinstance hooks Iterable be defined again
> in terms
> of just checking for the presence of '__iter__' lookup-wise?  I suppose
> there are some other similar
> cases, of course in other situations the ABC carry an intention that
> goes beyond the presence
> of methods.

Hm, this certainly sounds like an interesting avenue. So Iterable
could override isinstance and issubclass that just check for the
presence of __iter__, and Sized could check for __len__, Hashable
could check for __hash__, Container could check for __contains__. I
think the others convey more meaning though; not everything iterable
sized container is a set (counter-examples are lists and bags). So it
would affect the "one trick ponies" section only. (Should Iterator
just check for __next__ and leave __iter__ up to the imagination?)

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)