Symbols as parameters?

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* Martin Drautzburg:
> Hello all,
> 
> When passing parameters to a function, you sometimes need a paramter
> which can only assume certain values, e.g.
> 
>         def move (direction):
>                 ...
> If direction can only be "up", "down", "left" or "right", you can solve
> this by passing strings, but this is not quite to the point:
> 
>         - you could pass invalid strings easily
>         - you need to quote thigs, which is a nuisance
>         - the parameter IS REALLY NOT A STRING, but a direction
> 
> Alternatively you could export such symbols, so when you "import *" you
> have them available in the caller's namespace. But that forces you
> to "import *" which pollutes your namespace.
> 
> What I am really looking for is a way
> 
>         - to be able to call move(up)
>         - having the "up" symbol only in the context of the function call
> 
> So it should look something like this
> 
> ... magic, magic ...
> move(up)
> ... unmagic, unmagic ...
> print up
> 
> This should complain that "up" is not defined during the "print" call,
> but not when move() is called. And of course there should be as little
> magic as possible.
> 
> Any way to achieve this?

 >>> def move( direction ):
...   print( "move " + str( direction ) )
...
 >>> move( "up" )
move up
 >>>
 >>> class using_directions:
...     up = 42
...     move( up )
...
move 42
 >>> up
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'up' is not defined
 >>> _


Of course it's an abuse of the language. :-)

So I wouldn't recommend it, but it's perhaps worth having seen it.


Cheers & hth.,

- Alf

PS: I hope this was not a homework question.