MRAB wrote:
On 01/06/2012 18:50, Ethan Furman wrote:
I'm getting towards an actual non-beta release, which means even more
tests, polishings, cleaning up of various things, and actual
documentation. :)
However, I am wondering about my current record API:
Currently, one does things like:
record.scatter_fields()
or
record.has_been_deleted
or
record.record_number
The reason those method names are so long is that field names are
limited to 10 characters, and long method names means no possibility of
name clashes.
Unfortunately, Version 7 tables can have much longer field names.
So, do I not ever support version 7, do I not worry about it until I get
there (which could easily be a long time from now), or do I move all the
methods out of the record class and make them module level functions
instead? That would like:
dbf.scatter_fields(record)
dbf.has_been_deleted(record)
dbf.record_number(record)
although probably with shorter names.
Thoughts?
I'd probably think of a record as being more like a dict (or an
OrderedDict)
with the fields accessed by key:
record["name"]
but:
record.deleted
Record fields are accessible both by key and by attribute -- by key
primarily for those cases when the field name is in a variable:
for field in ('full_name','nick_name','pet_name'):
print record[field]
and since dbf record names cannot start with _ and are at most 10
characters long I've used longer than that method names... but if I want
to support dbf version 7 that won't work.
I would like to, not sure I will (it's not a need for me at work), but
prudence suggests I make the easy preparations now.
~Ethan~
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