variables of the class are not available as default values?

[seanacais]

On Aug 27, 5:44 pm, Chris Rebert <c... at rebertia.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 2:37 PM, seanacais<kccnos... at glenevin.com> wrote:
> > I'm working on a program where I wish to define the default value of a
> > method as a value that was set in __init__.  I get a compilation error
> > saying that self is undefined.
>
> > As always a code snippet helps :-)
>
> > class foo:
> >    def __init__(self, maxvalue):
> >        self.maxvalue = maxvalue
> >        self.value = 0
>
> >    def put(self, value=self.maxvalue):
> >        self.value = value
>
> > So if I call foo.put() the value is set to maxvalue but maxvalue can
> > be specified when I instantiate foo.
> > python test.py
> > Traceback (most recent call last):
> >  File "test.py", line 1, in <module>
> >    class foo:
> >  File "test.py", line 6, in foo
> >    def put(self, value=self.maxvalue):
> > NameError: name 'self' is not defined
> > Explanations and/or workarounds much appreciated.
>
> Workaround:
>
> class foo:
>     def __init__(self, maxvalue):
>         self.maxvalue = maxvalue
>         self.value = 0
>
>     def put(self, value=None):
>         self.value = self.value if value is None else value
>
> Explanation:
>
> Default values are only evaluated once, when the class is defined,
> thus "self" is not defined at that point since the class is still
> being defined when the method definition is executed and thus there
> can be no instances yet anyway.
>
> Cheers,
> Chris
> --http://blog.rebertia.com

That clears that up for me.   Thank you!