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Thu Apr 1 11:56:39 EST 2004 · http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2004-April/043902.html

I saw both of the following use cases mentioned on the list, and they 
seemed interesting, so I went ahead and wrote up implementations:

def property_getter(func):
     """
     A decorator that can be used to incrementally construct
     properties.  For example, the following code constructs a
     property 'x' from an fget, an fset, and an fdel function:

         >>> class A:
         ...     def x(self) [property_getter]:
         ...         return self.__x
         ...     def x(self, val) [property_setter]:
         ...         self.__x = val
         ...     def x(self) [property_deleter]:
         ...         del self.__x

     In particular, this decorator checks if a property named
     'func' is defined in the enclosing frame.  If so, then it
     updates that property's fget to be 'func'.  If not, then
     it creates a new property whose fget is 'func'.  The
     property's docstring is taken from the first decorated
     property function to define a docstring.
     """

def generic(*type_signature):
     """
     A decorator-generator that can be used to incrementally construct
     a generic function that delegates to individual functions based on
     the type signature of the arguments.  For example, the following
     code defines a generic function that uses two different actual
     functions, depending on whether its argument is a string or an
     int:

         >>> def f(x) [generic(int)]:
         ...     print x, 'is an int'
         >>> def f(x) [generic(str)]:
         ...     print x, 'is a string'

     In particular, the decorator returned by this function checks if a
     Generic function-delegation object with the same name as the
     decorated function is defined in the enclosing frame.  If so, then
     it registers the function with that generic object, under
     'type_signature'.  If not, then it creates a new Generic
     function-delegation object, and registers the function.
     """

Full code is at <http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~edloper/pydecorators.html>.

But I still don't feel like I have a good handle on what "acceptable" 
uses of decorators are..  So, for each of these 2 use cases, is it...
     - an excellent example that should be included in the stdlib
     - perfectly acceptable, and belongs in the python cookbook
     - somewhat hackish, but ok under the right circumstances
     - an abhorition of nature

(If one of the first 3, then maybe they should be added to the pep?) 
Thanks for the feedback.

-Edward

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Showing content from http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2004-April/043902.html below:

[Python-Dev] PEP 318 -- a couple use cases