i'd guess this has been brought up before, but i'm not aware of it. anyway -- by what i've gathered, today's dir() "collects" the attributes of the object from __dict__, __methods__, __members__, and ultimately __class__. also, if i understood correctly, __methods__ and __members__ are deprecated. moreover, they are sequence objects, rather than callbale functions. that means my code can't
my suggestion is simple -- replace this mechanism with a __dir__ - a special method that returns the list of attributes of the object. rationale: * remove deprecated __methods__, etc. * symmetry -- just like hex() calls __hex__, etc. * __methods__ and __members__ are lists rather than callable objects, which means they cannot be updated on-demand and the reason for bringing this up in the first place -- allowing proxy objects to show the attributes of the internal object. for example, in rpyc, i had to override __builtin__.dir to achieve this functionallity, which is of course not the optimal sollution. implementation: very straight forward and similar to the rest of the special methods: * dir() - returns the current scope * dir(obj) - retuns obj.__dir__(); if the object does not provide __dir__, uses the current mechanism as a fallback, or something similar the ultimate object type would grow a default __dir__ method that uses the same modus operandi as today's dir, which deriving classes could override to provide custom listings. therefore, i don't expect any backward-compatibility issues. aye or nay? -tomer _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
