C-API, tp_dictoffset vs tp_members

[Ulrich Eckhardt]

"Martin v. Löwis" wrote:
>>>> I have a predefined set of members, some of which are optional.
>>> Having optional fields is also a good reason.
>> 
>> What is the use of T_OBJECT_EX vs T_OBJECT in PyMemberDef then?
> 
> Right - this works for optional objects. However, it can't possibly
> work for any of the other fields.

I have two members, one T_OBJECT and one T_OBJECT_EX. Both are NULL and both 
still appear in the dir() output. For one, accessing it returns 'None', for 
the other it raises an exception. I would have expected an element that is 
not accessible, not even 'None', to also not be visible in dir().

>>  I would have thought that the former describes an optional field,
>>  because the behaviour of accessing it when it is NULL is the same
>>  as accessing a nonexistent field. However, I see that it still
>>  appears in the dir() output even if it is NULL, so it seems I'm
>>  misunderstanding this.
> 
> I suppose that's because there will still be a descriptor for the
> field in the class.

So is that intentional or is it dir() that could be improved there? Should I 
file a bugreport?


Thanks for the tip with __dict__ in tp_members, that does the job!

Uli