[Python-Dev] PEP 391 ready for review

[Terry Reedy]

Vinay Sajip wrote:
> Full View
> PEP 391 is, I believe, ready for review.
> 
> http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0391/

This is my first reading of this. Comments:

nit: I believe "both of these serialization formats allow 
deserialization of Python dictionaries." should be "... to Python 
dictionaries."

"bespoke configuration methods" I had to look up this mostly 
non-American British word, which I thought meant 'engaged (to be 
married, as in spoken for)' to guess that you probably mean the much 
more obscure 'custom configuration methods'. If so, please say so (in 
plain American ;-)

"The logging.config module will have the following additions:"
There is currently only one addition.

"Nothing will be returned, though exceptions will be raised "
Technically incorrect. "Returns None; exceptions ..." or just 
"Exceptions ...". The doc for print(), for instance, just says what is 
does and does not mention the default None return.

"particular logger has an attached to it a particular handler."
delete 'an'

" '()' : 'my.package.customFormatterFactory', "

This at first appeared to be a typo. You earlier wrote "the user will 
need to provide a 'factory' - a callable which is called with a 
configuration dictionary and which returns the instantiated object. This 
will be signalled by the factory being made available under the special 
key '()'. " A string is not a callable. So I thought you perhaps meant
" '()' : my.package.customFormatterFactory, " without the quotes, or
" '()' : <<my.package.customFormatterFactory>>, ", where <<object type>> 
is understood to be a place filler for an object of the type specified.

Then I see "the specified factory callable will be located using normal 
import mechanisms" If you stick with this, then
"This will be signalled by the factory being made available under the 
special key '()'."
would be clearer as
"This will be signalled by an absolute import path to the factory being 
made available under the special key '()'."

However, if the code that constructs the dict passed to dictConfig() has 
the factory in hand, and possibly no absolute import path, why not let 
it pass the function directly instead of indirectly. (I am here using 
'absolute import path' to mean one that logging can resolve, rather than 
being only resolvable from the dictConfig caller.) Being able to do so 
is one of the great features of Python. The code for dictConfig could 
easily wrap the current import.

if not hasattr(factory, '__call__'): factory = __import__(factory)


"The '()' also serves as a mnemonic that the corresponding value is a 
callable." More than just that, parentheses preceeded by an expression 
*are* a call operator, mapped to '__call__', just as the addition 
operator '+' is mapped to '__add__'. Great choice to me.

...
"If serialization is successful, then dictConfig() will be called to 
process the resulting dictionary"
deserialization


Terry Jan Reedy