[Python-Dev] Instance variable access and descriptors

[Brian Harring]

On Tue, Jun 12, 2007 at 08:10:26PM +1200, Greg Ewing wrote:
> Phillip J. Eby wrote:
> > ...at the cost of slowing down access to properties and __slots__, by 
> > adding an *extra* dictionary lookup there.
> 
> Rather than spend time tinkering with the lookup order,
> it might be more productive to look into implementing
> a cache for attribute lookups. That would help with
> method lookups as well, which are probably more
> frequent than instance var accesses.

Was wondering the same; specifically, hijacking pep280 celldict 
appraoch for this.

Downside, this would break code that tries to do PyDict_* calls on a 
class tp_dict; haven't dug extensively, but I'm sure there are a few 
out there.

Main thing I like about that approach is that it avoids the staleness 
verification crap, single lookup- it's there or it isn't.  It would 
also be resuable for 280.

If folks don't much like the hit from tracing back to a cell holding 
an actual value, could always implement it such that upon change, the 
change propagates out to instances registered (iow, change a.__dict__, 
it notifies b.__dict__ of the change, etc, till it hits a point where 
the change doesn't need to go further).

~harring
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/attachments/20070612/435ee92d/attachment.pgp