I want to have classes that automatically send notifications to subscribers whenever one of their attributes change. So if I would write this code:
@ChangeMonitor
class ChangingClass(object):
def __init__(self, x):
self.x = x
changer = ChangingClass(5)
print("Going to change x.")
changer.x = 6
print("Going to not change x.")
changer.x = 6
print("End of program")
The output would be:
Going to change x
Old x = 5, new x = 6
Going to not change x.
End of program.
My question is how to implement the ChangeMonitor decorator class. In the above example I assume it will print a line indicating the changes of an attribute, but for useful purposes it could send notifications to subscribed objects.
You'd have to add a __setattr__()
method:
def ChangeMonitor(cls):
_sentinel = object()
old_setattr = getattr(cls, '__setattr__', None)
def __setattr__(self, name, value):
old = getattr(self, name, _sentinel)
if old not is _sentinel and old != value:
print "Old {0} = {1!r}, new {0} = {2!r}".format(name, old, value)
if old_setattr:
old_setattr(self, name, value)
else:
# Old-style class
self.__dict__[name] = value
cls.__setattr__ = __setattr__
return cls
This should handle existing __setattr__
hooks as well. The _sentinel
is used to allow None
as the old value too.
Demo:
>>> changer = ChangingClass(5)
>>> changer.x = 6
Old x = 5, new x = 6
>>> changer.x = 6
>>> # nothing printed
...
>>> changer.x = None
Old x = 6, new x = None
>>> changer.x = 6
Old x = None, new x = 6