On 15/12/2011 05:01, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 18:13:36 -0500, Terry Reedy wrote:
On 12/14/2011 3:01 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:29:13 -0500, Terry Reedy wrote:
To complement what Eric says below: The with statement is looking for
an instance *method*, which by definition, is a function attribute of
a *class* (the class of the context manager) that takes an instance of
the class as its first parameter.
I'm not sure that is correct... I don't think that there is anything
"by definition" about where methods live.
From the Python glossary:
"method: A function which is defined inside a class body."
That is actually a bit too narrow, as a function can be added to the
class after it is defined. But the point then is that it is treated as
if defined inside the class body.
First off, let me preface this by saying that I'm not necessarily saying
that the above glossary definition needs to be changed. For most
purposes, it is fine, since *nearly always* methods are created as
functions defined inside the class body. But it needs to be understood in
context as a simplified, hand-wavy definition which covers 99% of the
common cases, and not a precise, definitive technical definition.
To give an analogy, it is like defining mammals as "hairy animals which
give birth to live young", which is correct for all mammals except for
monotremes, which are mammals which lay eggs.
[snip]
Or the naked mole-rat. Or cetaceans (whales).
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