[Python-Dev] PEP 3101 Update

[Talin]

Steven Bethard <steven.bethard <at> gmail.com> writes:

> I'm still not a big fan of mixing together getitem-style access and
> getattribute-style access.  That makes classes that support both
> ambiguous in this context.  You either need to specify the order in
> which these are checked (e.g. attribute then item or item then
> attribute), or, preferably, you need to extend the syntax to allow
> getitem-style access too.
> 
> Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that you support anything more
> then items and attributes.  So this is *not* a request to allow
> arbitrary expressions.  In fact, the only use-case I see in the PEP
> needs only item access, not attribute access, so maybe you could drop
> attribute access?
> 
> Can't you just extend the syntax for *only* item access?  E.g. something like:
> 
>     "My name is {0[name]} :-\{\}".format(dict(name='Fred'))

I'm not opposed to the idea of adding item access, although I believe that
attribute access is also useful. In either case, its not terribly hard to
implement.

I'd like to hear what other people have to say on this issue.

-- Talin