Revised PEP 318 - Function/Method Decorator Syntax

[Ian Bicking]

On Tue, 2003-06-10 at 16:43, Chris Liechti wrote:
> Kevin Smith <Kevin.Smith at sas.com> wrote in news:20030610082514442-
> 0400 at braeburn.themorgue.org:
> > Function/Method Decorator Syntax
> > --------------------------------
> >         def foo(self) as synchronized(lock), classmethod:
> >             perform method operation
> 
> what's with the [] syntax discussed here a week ago? 
> it was something like:
> 
>   def foo(self) [synchronized(lock), classmethod]:
> 
> or merging with yours:
> 
>   def foo(self) as [synchronized(lock), classmethod]:
> 
> i think the use of [] is quite logic. it's a _list_ of function decorators. 
> and it helps readability, at least the variants should be listed as 
> alternatives in the PEP.

But lists aren't used in Python syntax, only in other APIs.  *Tuples*
are used, or tuple-like constructs, like:

try:
    ...
except (IOError, OSError):
    ...

There's also the question about whether a list is really what you want. 
Could you do:

    def syncclassmethod(lock):
        return [synchronized(lock), classmethod)]

    def foo(self) syncclassmethod(lock):
        ...

That's just bad, but disallowing that seems arbitrary.  But disallowing
a (non-literal) tuple seems much more reasonable.

  Ian