[Python-Dev] bug or a feature?
Terry Reedy
tjreedy at udel.edu
Thu Jun 12 02:32:45 CEST 2008
"Scott Dial" <scott+python-dev at scottdial.com> wrote in message
news:4850263A.3040805 at scottdial.com...
|| If non-string keys are not allowed in __dict__, then the AddOns library
| should be changed to add another dict to the object of interest to track
| these AddOn instances.
There are three possibilities with respect to __dict__ and non-string keys.
1. All implementations must reject such.
2. Each implementation decides for itself.
3. All implementations must allow such.
Current, CPython does not reject, eliminating 1). Since, as I understand
it, at least 1 other implementation does reject, 3) is also eliminated
until Guido decrees otherwise and such implementation(s) change. This
leaves 2) as the de facto situation, but this could be made clearer in the
docs: "The result of trying to add non-string keys to any __dict__
attribute is implementation defined." This means that portable Python code
must act as if 1) were the case.
The Data Model chapter of the Reference Manual lists .__dict__ as a special
attribute of callables, modules, classes, and instances. It describes
__dict__ as a "namespace dictionary" or "implementation of the namespace"
thereof. Since namespaces map names (or possibly non-name strings) to
objects, this to me implies that an implementation is and should not be
required to allow non-strings in __dict__.
The same chapter has more than one sentence saying something like "o.x is
equivalent to o.__dict__['x']". While one could read this as prohibiting
o.__dict__[non_string], one could also read it as being silent, neither
allowing nor prohibiting.
The builtin interface functions setattr, hasattr, getattr all require
strings for accessing the underlying __dict__. Since they could have been
defined otherwise, to accept any object as an attribute 'name' (key), this
again implies (to me) that __dict__s are only intended and only required to
have string keys. Hence, I was initially surprised that 1) above was not
true. So I might add something stronger to the docs, something like "The
special __dict__ attributes are only intended to hold string keys. If an
implementation allows other keys, that is only an current accidental
side-effect of considerations of parsimony and efficiency."
Contrariwise, if 3) were mandated, then I would think that the xxxattr
functions should be changed.
Terry Jan Reedy
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