Hopefully an easy question. If I have an object and I want to call a method on it which is the better approach, A or B?
class foo(object):
def bar():
print 'bar'
# approach A
f = foo()
f.bar()
# approach B
foo().bar()
views:
98answers:
3
+1
A:
If your sole intent is to call bar() on a foo object, B is okay.
But if you actually plan to do something with the object later, you must go with A as B doesn't leave you any references to the created object.
Amarghosh
2010-03-09 14:31:54
Could use an @staticmethod decorator instead of B? Seems like a better solution.
Phil
2010-03-09 14:33:40
@Phil: better for what? yes, you could use `@staticmethod` if you need it. It's not clear whether you need it though.
SilentGhost
2010-03-09 14:39:08
+1
A:
Approach B doesn't keep the object around. If method bar() returns self then you can write:
f = foo().bar()
Personally I like method A. Though I've started making setter functions that return self in order to chain them together like above - I don't think other people consider that pythonic.
phkahler
2010-03-09 14:48:56
The Python stdlib makes a point of returning None instead of self, when the point of a method has nothing to do with the return value, even when returning self would let you chain and type less. Case in point: `list.sort` . So, no. I don't really think you could call it pythonic, although what is or is not pythonic is hardly objective.
Devin Jeanpierre
2010-03-09 14:53:20