i don't really understand member variables..

[gabor]

On Thu, 2002-10-24 at 04:17, Ian Bicking wrote:
> On Wed, 2002-10-23 at 19:54, gabor wrote:
> > hi,
> > 
> > until now i thought i understand member variables...


now i understand :-)

thanks to all the people who answered

bye,
gabor

> > 
> > but now i don't :-):
> > 
> > example:
> > >>> class Test:
> > ...     data = []
> > ... 
> > >>> a = Test()
> > >>> a.data.append("x")
> > >>> a.data
> > ['x']
> > >>> b = Test()
> > >>> b.data
> > ['x']
> > 
> > so they are shared?
> > but now:
> > 
> > >>> b.data = ["y"]
> > >>> b.data
> > ['y']
> > >>> a.data
> > ['x']
> > 
> > now they aren't anymore....
> > 
> > so if i define some data after the class... line then those are
static (
> > as in c++?) but why the stop being static in the second
code-example?
> 
> Someone else explained how you start with a class variable.  But
there's
> more, as you were able to see...
> 
> When you do an assignment like inst.var = something, and the instance
> doesn't already have an instance variable by the name "var", then an
> instance variable is created.  So when you did 'b.data = ["y"]', you
> created a "data" instance variable in the b instance (but not in the a
> instance).  So when you later say "a.data", it looks in a, finds no
> instance variable, and then looks in Test, and finds a class variable.
> When you do "b.data" it finds an instance variable and returns that,
and
> never looks in Test.
> 
> If you want to change the class variable, you'd have to do Test.data =
> ["y"], or perhaps b.__class__.data = ["y"].  But of course if you do
> something like b.data[0] = "y", you will be leaving the list in place,
> and just changing it's 0th member -- so you'd never create an instance
> variable with that statement.
> 
> This is all a little contorted.  My advice is to simply never assign
to
> class variables -- I usually use them as constants or as state-holding
> objects (i.e., I never reassign the variable, but I might append to a
> list).
> 
>   Ian
> 
> 
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