[Python-Dev] Third and hopefully final post: PEP 557, Data Classes

[Eric V. Smith]

On 11/30/2017 7:22 PM, Eric V. Smith wrote:
> On 11/30/2017 1:30 PM, Brett Cannon wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 30 Nov 2017 at 05:00 Eric V. Smith <eric at trueblade.com 
>> <mailto:eric at trueblade.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     On 11/30/2017 6:59 AM, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
>>      >
>>      > Or, simply, is_dataclass_instance(), which is even longer, but
>>     far more
>>      > readable thanks to explicit word boundaries :-)
>>
>>     That actually doesn't bother me. I think this API will be used 
>> rarely,
>>     if ever. Or more realistically, it should be used rarely: what 
>> actually
>>     happens will no doubt surprise me.
>>
>>     So I'm okay with is_dataclass_instance() and is_dataclass_class().
>>
>>     But then I'm also okay with dropping the API entirely. nametuple has
>>     lived for years without it, although Raymond's advice there is 
>> that if
>>     you really want to know, look for _fields. See
>>     https://bugs.python.org/issue7796#msg99869 and the following 
>> discussion.
>>
>>
>> My question was going to be whether this is even necessary. :) Perhaps 
>> we just drop it for now and add it in if we find there's a public need 
>> for it?
> 
> That's what I'm leaning toward. I've been trying to figure out what 
> attr.has() or hasattr(obj, '_fields') are actually used for. The attrs 
> version is hard to search for, and while I see the question about 
> namedtuples asked fairly often on SO, I haven't seen an actual use case.
> 
> It's easy enough for someone to write their own isdataclass(), 
> admittedly using an undocumented feature.

Actually there's a supported way to write your own isdataclass(): call 
dataclasses.fields(obj). If it throws a TypeError, it's not a dataclass 
instance or class. I'll add a note to the PEP.

Eric.

> 
> So I'm thinking let's drop it and then gauge the demand for it, if any.
> 
> Eric.
> 
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