Polymorphism

[holger krekel]

Carlos Moreira wrote:
> How Python implement Polymorphism?
> 
> 	[]'s

With python you mostly care what you can *do* to an 
object not which exact type it has.  
So take e.g.  the tokenize module which has a method

def tokenize(readline, tokeneater=printtoken):
    ...

which takes a function 'readline' and calls it. 
You only need to provide an object which can be 
called and provides a string.  So

    tokenize.tokenize(['','i+5'].pop)

does the job. First called it returns 'i+5' and
second time it returns the empty string which indicates
end of input. There was no need to assert some base class ...

However, it's easy enough to dispatch on the type 
of an object, e.g.

dispatch_dict = {
    int : HandleInt,
    str : HandleStr,
    list : HandleList
    }

def polymorphic_func(arg, *otherargs):
    return dispatch_dict(type(arg)) (*otherargs)

But often you might improve your design by focusing 
more on what you want to *do* with your objects 
rather than asserting exact types.

Besides, i think that implementing polymorphism more or
less involves a mechanism for static type declaration.
And this should only happen very carefully if at all.

HTH,

    holger