Ezio Melotti <ezio.melo...@gmail.com> added the comment: FWIW that section used to be called "Private variables through name mangling" back in 1.5, and started by saying "There is now limited support for class-private identifiers.".
PEP8 [0] also talks about the name mangling in several places, and carefully avoids the use of "private": """ To avoid name clashes with subclasses, use two leading underscores to invoke Python's name mangling rules. Python mangles these names with the class name: if class Foo has an attribute named __a, it cannot be accessed by Foo.__a. (An insistent user could still gain access by calling Foo._Foo__a.) Generally, double leading underscores should be used only to avoid name conflicts with attributes in classes designed to be subclassed. """ And it even includes the following two notes: """ We don't use the term "private" here, since no attribute is really private in Python (without a generally unnecessary amount of work). """ """ Not everyone likes name mangling. Try to balance the need to avoid accidental name clashes with potential use by advanced callers. """ [0]: http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/ ---------- _______________________________________ Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue12086> _______________________________________ _______________________________________________ Python-bugs-list mailing list Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-bugs-list/archive%40mail-archive.com
