[Python-ideas] Proposal for special name and qualname symbols

[Nikolaus Rath]

On Jun 08 2016, Nikolaus Rath <Nikolaus-BTH8mxji4b0 at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Jun 09 2016, Steven D'Aprano <steve-iDnA/YwAAsAk+I/owrrOrA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> This is an new thread inspired by the "Quick idea: defining variables 
>> from functions that take the variable name" thread.
>>
>> For the benefit of those who haven't read that thread, in a nutshell, 
>> there are some functions or classes that find it useful or necessary to 
>> know their own name or qualified name. At the moment, apart from a few 
>> special cases where the compiler does the work behind the scenes 
>> (function and class definitions), the only way to do this is to 
>> hard-code the name/qualname as a string.
>>
>> The classic example from the standard library is namedtuple:
>>
>> Record = namedtuple('Record', fields)
>>
>> Proposal: we introduce two special symbols to represent the name and 
>> qualname at any point. They can be used anywhere an identifier can be 
>> used.
>>
>> We could use special dunder names, let's say __NAME__ and __QNAME__, but 
>> for now I'm going to use two special symbols:
>>
>> @ for the unqualified bare name;
>> @@ for the qualified name.
>>
>> The namedtuple example would become:
>>
>> Record = namedtuple(@, fields)
> [...]
>
> This is so similar (in both semantics and syntax) to the
>
> Record = namedtuple($lhs, fields)
>
> proposal that I've made several times in that thread that I am a little
> offended. Either you've not read that thread all that thorougly, or you
> have a rather selective memory.

...or there might have been another reason. Sorry, that wasn't meant to
come out so aggressively.


Best,
-Nikolaus

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