'with' statement in python ?

[Steve Holden]

I was going to add this to the FAQ, but sadly I can't get the FAQ Wizard
page up at present. The worl wide wait strikes again... you're right, it's a
good answer. Not that everyone who comes here has read the FAQ (or serched
Google) when they arrive, of course.

regards
 Steve
--
http://www.holdenweb.com/


"Carlos Ribeiro" <cribeiro at mail.inet.com.br> wrote in message
news:mailman.993515440.4888.python-list at python.org...
> At 21:50 25/06/01 +0000, Mark Hadfield wrote:
> >From: "asgard" <asgard at hellnet.cz>
> >
> >
> > > Hello,
> > > writing self before every object's method really drives me
> > > crazy. Shouldn't there be 'with' statement like in Pascal, ie.
> >
> >There was an extensive discussion on this recently. Perhaps you'd like to
> >try a search on Google Groups. IIRC the consensus was that adding this to
> >Python would not be a good idea, because when "with" blocks are nested
they
> >become hard to read and possibly ambiguous.
>
> I'll repeat the same argument that I gave some time ago. Maybe it's a good
> answer for this FAQ :-)
>
> Some languages, such as Object Pascal, Delphi, and C++, use static types.
> So it is possible to know, in a unambiguous way, what member is being
> assigned in a "with" clause. This is the main point - the compiler
*always*
> knows the scope of every variable at compile time.
>
> Python uses dynamic types. It is impossible to know in advance which
> attribute will be referenced at runtime. Member attributes may be added or
> removed from objects on the fly. This would make it impossible to know,
> from a simple reading, what attribute is being referenced - a local one, a
> global one, or a member attribute.
>
> For instance, take the following snippet (it is incomplete btw, just to
> give you the idea):
>
> def with_is_broken(a):
>    with a:
>      print x
>
> The snippet above assume that "a" must have a member attribute called "x".
> However, there is nothing in Python that guarantees that. What should
> happen if "a" is, let us say, an integer? And if I have a global variable
> named "x", will it end up being used inside the with block? As you see,
the
> dynamic nature of Python makes such choices much harder.
>
>
> Carlos Ribeiro
>
>
>