> So my question is whether it's bad practice to set things up so each > method operates on self.document or should I pass document around from > one function to the next? >
I think this depends on the use case. If the functions you're calling in between have a chance to be called independently, then I would probably allow passing the documents in the arguments, so that other code can utilise this function. On the other extreme, if this function is only used internally, I would simply use self.object to avoid copying extra references, and treat them as sub routines. I would also previx two underscores (__) before the function to indicate that it's supposed to be interal-use only. The other use case is, if self.object is useful after the function, I would keep it as that. Then, other code could use it without processing it again. On the other hand, if it is useless after created and returned, then I would not keep a reference in the class object. All in all, you probably won't find a big performance difference, so it all boils down to logical placement. Cheers, Xav
-- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
