On Sep 21, 3:39 pm, Steven D'Aprano <[EMAIL PROTECTED] cybersource.com.au> wrote: > I have a class which is not intended to be instantiated. Instead of using > the class to creating an instance and then operate on it, I use the class > directly, with classmethods. Essentially, the class is used as a function > that keeps state from one call to the next. > > The problem is that I don't know what to call such a thing! "Abstract > class" isn't right, because that implies that you should subclass the > class and then instantiate the subclasses. > > What do you call such a class? > > -- > Steven
It actually sounds like you are doing something similar to the monostate pattern. In Java the monostate pattern is usually implemented by creating a class that only has static functions and variables. You _can_ instantiate it, but every instance will share the same state. In that way it is very similar to the Singleton pattern (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singleton_pattern). In Python I haven't found a need for monostate, since you can override __new__ and return exactly the same instance. However, you you wanted to be able to inherit a monostate object and share some of the state between the class and subclass it might still be useful. Perhaps if you post some example code? Matt -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
