Definition of "property"

[Chris Angelico]

On Mon, May 31, 2021 at 2:58 AM Irv Kalb <Irv at furrypants.com> wrote:
>
> I am doing some writing (for an upcoming book on OOP), and I'm a little stuck.
>
> I understand what a "property" is, how it is used and the benefits, but apparently my explanation hasn't made the light bulb go on for my editor.  The editor is asking for a definition of property.  I've looked at many articles on line and a number of books, and I haven't found an appropriate one yet.
>
> I have written some good examples of how it works, but I agree that a definition up front would be helpful.  I have tried a number of times, but my attempts to define it have not been clear.  Perhaps the best I've found so far is from the Python documentation:
>
> A property object has getter, setter, and deleter methods usable as decorators that create a copy of the property with the corresponding accessor function set to the decorated function.
>
> But I'm hoping that someone here can give me a more concise (one or two sentence) definition of the word "property".
>

A property is an attribute with customized get/set behaviour.

It lets you change what normally happens when you say
"print(thing.attribute)" or "thing.attribute = spam".

Personally, I wouldn't bother mentioning deletion in the opening
definition, for brevity's sake, but it'll be there when you go into
detail.

ChrisA