On Oct 6, 4:58 am, Maric Michaud <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > As the first post said "...couldn't python (in theory)...", I was discussing > if it would be possible for python (in some future version) to manage the > literals so that they use the constructors in the __builtin__ module, I > didn't say it works actually (I'm aware it's not the case).
Hi Maric, I think the problem Steve was pointing out is this: how do you make a literal use a constructor that is not available until *after* the literal has been constructed? In other words, python currently does this: 1) parses plaintext into bytecode (at which point literals are constructed), 2) executes bytcode (at which point custom constructors are available). The only way I can see to do what I asked is to, during bytecode compilation, mark a literal in the AST as being a literal (+1 bits, at least, on every literal until it is constructed) but not actually constructing it until the point of execution (+? time to go back through the object space looking for marked objects and constructing them). I don't know enough about python internals to know if that would be a problem, but I seriously doubt it would be implemented without some pressing use cases. So it is possible, but probably not plausible. Regards, Jordan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list