Anonymous Classes

[Lachlan Gunn]

Hello.

I have a library (SQLObject) that stores data as class variables.  I would
like to set a class variable in a certain context, specific to a certain
instance of an object.  This would require some sort of anonymous class.  I
have attempted to use the following code to set the connection string:

| class SQLStorage:
|    def __init__(self, c, debug = False):
|        config = StorageConfiguration(c)
| 
|        connection = sqlobject.connectionForURI(config.databaseString)
|        if debug:
|            connection.debug = True
| 
|        # I don't know whether this is right.  My belief is that we can
|        # subclass each table and use _connection on them.
|        class newDatum(DatumTable):
|            _connection = connection
| 
|        class newMetadatum(MetadatumTable):
|            _connection = connection
| 
|        class newChecksum(ChecksumTable):
|            _connection = connection
| 
|        self.__SQLDatum     = newDatum
|        self.__SQLMetadatum = newMetadatum
|        self.__SQLChecksum  = newChecksum

This does not work; Python complains that the classes already exist when
SQLObject is instantiated for a second time.  This has led me to try
instantiating a subclass using DatumTable.__class__ and friends, but this
requires setting a class name, which, again, limits me to a single
instance.  I *could* have a counter that appends a number to each class
name, but that's a fairly ugly solution; is it possible to create an
anonymous class in Python?

Thanks,
Lachlan.