On 2013-12-04, Piotr Dobrogost <p...@google-groups-2013.dobrogost.net> wrote: > On Wednesday, December 4, 2013 2:06:44 AM UTC+1, Tim Chase wrote: >> >> I think random832 is saying that the designed purpose of setattr() >> was to dynamically set attributes by name, so they could later be >> accessed the traditional way; not designed from the ground-up to >> support non-identifier names. But because of the getattr/setattr >> machinery (dict key/value pairs), it doesn't prevent you from having >> non-identifiers as names as long as you use only the getattr/setattr >> method of accessing them. > > Right. If there's already a way to have attributes with these > "non-standard" names (which is a good thing)
At best its a neutral thing. You can use dict for the same purpose with very little effort and no(?) loss of efficiency. > then for uniformity with dot access to attributes with > "standard" names there should be a variant of dot access > allowing to access these "non-standard" named attributes, too. New syntax needs more than theoretical justifications; it needs persuasive use cases. Using invalid identifiers as attributes is generally a bad idea, not something to do commonly. Your proposed syntax leaves the distinction between valid and invalid identifiers a problem the programmer has to deal with. It doesn't unify access to attributes the way the getattr and setattr do. -- Neil Cerutti -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
