[Python-ideas] Add kwargs to built-in function object

[Guido van Rossum]

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 5:22 AM, Aahz <aahz at pythoncraft.com> wrote:
> On Thu, May 22, 2008, Brandon Mintern wrote:
>>
>> I would like to propose to change the built-in function "object" to
>> have the following syntax:
>>
>> object(**kwargs)
>> Return a new featureless object. object is a base for all new style
>> classes. It has the methods that are common to all instances of new
>> style classes.
>
> Enh.  It's easy enough to write
>
>    class Obj:
>        def __init__(self, **kwargs):
>            self.__dict__.update(kwargs)
>
> It's not clear to me that your functionality is desired frequently enough
> *in that specific form* to warrant changing object().  Note particularly
> the emphasis; over the years, I've seen various small variations in how
> people want kwargs processed and it's not at all clear to me that
> codifying one specific form into the language would be helpful.

This is the answer that came to my mind.

Also note that not all classes give their instances a __dict__, and
object (being the simplest object possible) does not -- so
object(foo=1) wold not have a place where to store the 'foo': 1
mapping.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)