On 02/26/2018 07:28 AM, Rhodri James wrote:
On 26/02/18 14:41, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
I have a class with a large number of parameters (about ten) assigned in
`__init__`. The class then has a number of methods which accept
*optional* arguments with the same names as the constructor/initialiser
parameters. If those arguments are None, the defaults are taken from the
instance attributes.

An example might be something like this:


class Foo:
     def __init__(self, bashful, doc, dopey, grumpy,
                        happy, sleepy, sneezy):
         self.bashful = bashful  # etc

     def spam(self, bashful=None, doc=None, dopey=None,
                    grumpy=None, happy=None, sleepy=None,
                    sneezy=None):
         if bashful is None:
             bashful = self.bashful
         if doc is None:
             doc = self.doc
         if dopey is None:
             dopey = self.dopey
         if grumpy is None:
             grumpy = self.grumpy
         if happy is None:
             happy = self.happy
         if sleepy is None:
             sleepy = self.sleepy
         if sneezy is None:
             sneezy = self.sneezy
         # now do the real work...

     def eggs(self, bashful=None, # etc...
                    ):
         if bashful is None:
             bashful = self.bashful
         # and so on

There's a lot of tedious boilerplate repetition in this, and to add
insult to injury the class is still under active development with an
unstable API, so every time I change one of the parameters, or add a new
one, I have to change it in over a dozen places.

Is there a good fix for this to reduce the amount of boilerplate?

You could use dicts?  Untested code:

class Foo:
     def __init__(self, **kwds):
         self.defaults = kwds

     def spam(self, **kwds):
         vars = self.defaults.copy()
         vars.update(kwds)
     # Do the work with vars['bashful'] etc



That's what I was about to suggest (and equally fail to test). It at least segregates the set of "instance variables I want to have auto-default behavior" from the rest of them. Yeah, **kwargs is clumsy, but it gets the job done.

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Rob Gaddi, Highland Technology -- www.highlandtechnology.com
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