Add methods to a class at runtime?

[Gerhard Häring]

* Robert Oschler <Oschler at earthlink.net> [2002-09-01 17:19 -0400]:
> Ok bear with me guys (Gerhard and Peter).  I'm not lazy, the reason I
> don't test certain things I should is because Python is capable of
> such amazing introspective dynamism that, having a _very_ long
> experience bank in strongly typed "static" languages like C++ and
> Pascal, I find I don't even consider yet even trying certain
> possibilies that Python is capable of.
> Some interesting tidbits I found while trying out your suggestions, as
> you will see in the two ".py" files that follow, I discovered that to
> create a method you can dynamically add to a class _instance_, you
> need to omit the 'self' parameter in the method declaration.

Yep, I found that out today too, when I wrote my last reply. Though I've
never used that in real life.

> [...] I'm running 2.1.1, anybody know if 2.2.2 is going "disable"
> either of these abilities?

It will be strictly (even binary) compatible with Python 2.2.{0|1}, so
the answer is that these features will stay.

> (class or class instance dynamic method addition).  I saw a note about
> such activities requiring a "dynamic" keyword, which is fine.

I never saw such a note. Maybe you were reading a message from the
(dormant) types-sig, where ways to introduce optional (!) stronger
typing into Python are discussed. I never saw Guido make any comments
about removing dynamic features from Python, though. With /one/
exception, which you didn't mention, yet: assigning to the __class__
attribute:

>>> class Foo:
...   def action(self): print "foo"
... 
>>> class Bar:
...   def action(self): print "bar"
... 
>>> foo = Foo()
>>> foo.__class__
<class __main__.Foo at 0x80d39ac>
>>> foo.action()
foo
>>> foo.__class__ = Bar
>>> foo.action()
bar
>>> foo.__class__
<class __main__.Bar at 0x80e75c4>
>>> 

AFAIK Guido isn't too fond of this feature. I guess it might go away
some day.

Gerhard
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