code structure advise for a model

[Marco Nawijn]

On Feb 4, 3:43 am, Martin De Kauwe <mdeka... at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am translating some c++ code to python and just wanted to ask some
> advise on structure. The original has everything declared globally and
> nothing passed via function (I assume, but don't know, that this isn't
> just standard c++ practice!). So given this, I have a pretty much
> clean slate as I can't quite just copy the functions over. I was
> thinking something like this
>
> class Params:
>
>     def __init__(self, fname):
>         self.set_inital_condtions()
>         self.read_input_file(fname)
>
>     def set_inital_conditons(self):
>         self.some_parm = 0.0
>
>     def read_input_file(fname):
>
>         #read file, change initial params if specified
>
> then I thought I could pass this as an object to the model class
>
> class Model(Params):
>
>     def __init__(self):
>         # blah
>
>     def some_func(self):
>          if (Params.some_param == something):
>              foo
>
> OR this just a very bad way to structure it?
>
> The other thing I can't decide on is how to pass the parameters and
> variables through the class. So because of the way the original is
> written (everything is global), I could just inherit things, but it
> does means there is a lot of self. syntax. So I wondered if it might
> be better to pass things as function arguments? Any thoughts? I am
> also half considering other users from non-python backgrounds and what
> might seem very alien (syntax) to them.
>
> thanks in advance
>
> (ps. I am cross posting this on comp.lang.python as I am not sure
> where is more appropriate).

I would structure it in three classes/functions:
1. A parser class/function that reads an input file and returns a
Parameters object
2. A Parameters class
3. A Model class that uses the Parameters

You would end up with something like the following:


class MyParser(object):

    def __init__(self, filename=None):
        self.filename = filename

    def parse(self, filename):

        params = Parameters()

        ...read info from filename and update parameters


        return params

class Parameters(object):

    def __init__(self):
         self.myAttribute1 = 0
         self.myAttribute2 = "A string"


class MyModel(object):

   def __init__(self, parameters):
       self.parameters = parameters

   def solve(self):
        ...solve the problem

The driver program would look something like this:

parser = MyParser()

params = parser.parse('inputfile')

model = MyModel(params)
model.solve()

I hope this is helpfull for you.

Regards,

Marco