[Python-Dev] Re: pep 318, Decorators for Functions, Methods and Classes

[David Abrahams]

Skip Montanaro <skip at pobox.com> writes:

> (still catching up...)
>
>     Simon> I just wanted to say that I believe it should be allowed to
>     Simon> decorate classes. There's not reason enough (reading the thread
>     Simon> linked to by the PEP) to limit decorators this way. Like said
>     Simon> several times in that thread, metaclasses are harder (to write
>     Simon> and to understand) than decorators.
>
> While it might be perceived as a limitation there's nothing preventing its
> addition in a later version if warranted.  I believe most/all the various
> proposals on the PythonDecorators wiki, not just the pie syntax, could be
> easily adapted to class decoration.

I was going for replacing the module's dict with a dict subclass, and
hooking __setitem__ it as an alternative to using settrace to
implement this.  It's not allowed, though :(.  We also need a way to
say, "replace the dict into which new definitions are falling" so we
can implement decorators inside of class definitions.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
http://www.boost-consulting.com