mixin class

[Udo Gleich]

Hi,

> Why not simply
> 
>  class K1(object):
>      pass
> 
>  class K2(object):
>      pass
> 
>  mixed =  type("K1_K2", (K1, K1), {})
>  new_instance = mixed()
> 
>  print new_instance
> 

almost.

If K1 has a constructor that takes arguments you get an
error when you call the constructor of the derived class
without an argument. Why do I want to do that? Usually
one would say that I should know the arguments of the
constructor of the derived class.

What I want to do is take *two objects*, derive from both
their classes, make a new object and combine the state of
the old objects.

I dont know if that is a good idea. I would appreciate comments
on the following solution. Especially the use of the dummy_init
function as an empty constructor looks not quite right to me.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

def dummy_init(self):
    pass

class Mixin:

    __shared_state = {"classes":{}}
    
    def __init__(self):
        self.__dict__ = self.__shared_state
        
    def mix(self, original_instance, mixin_instance):
        original_class = original_instance.__class__
        mixin_class = mixin_instance.__class__
        name = original_class.__name__ + '_' + mixin_class.__name__
        mixed = self.classes.get(name,
                                 type(name,
                                      (mixin_class, original_class),
                                      {"__init__": dummy_init}))
        new_instance = mixed()
        
        new_instance.__dict__.update(mixin_instance.__dict__)
        new_instance.__dict__.update(original_instance.__dict__)

        try:
            new_instance.late_init_original()
        except AttributeError:
            pass
        try:
            new_instance.late_init_mixin()
        except AttributeError:
            pass
        return new_instance
    
class K1(object):
    def __init__(self, a):
        self.a = a
 
class K2(object):
    def late_init_mixin(self):
        self.b = self.a + 1


mixer = Mixin()

new_instance = mixer.mix(K1(3), K2())

print new_instance
print new_instance.a, new_instance.b

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