CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpropertiesscopedecoratornaming
Ernesto
Ernesto

Reputation: 4017

Using 'property' as the name of a method in a python class

Is this possible in Python?

class MyClass(object):
    @property
    def property(self):
        return self._property

That is, I want to have a property named 'property'. It actually runs fine, but Eclipse complains with a warning. I thought the built-in @property decorator lived in a different namespace than the methods and properties within my classes.

Is it possible to rename the built-in decorator within the scope of the relevant module, so I can use the name 'property' without receiving this warning? Maybe something like the following:

attr = property

class MyClass(object):
    @attr
    def property(self):
        return self._property

I do this, but I still get the warning, since I created an alias for the global built-in @property decorator, but the name 'property' is still a valid way to refer to it.

Any ideas?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 503

Answers (2)

alexis
alexis

Reputation: 50220

Decorators are ordinary functions, so they live in the same namespace as other functions. Indeed your property function is inside class Foo; but it turns out that that's where python first looks for decorator names, so there's a conflict.

You can see this from the fact that the following code compiles:

class Foo(object):

    def decfun(x): return "ham"

    @decfun
    def second(self, y): pass

Upvotes: 1

Fred Foo
Fred Foo

Reputation: 363787

The problem with naming a property property is the following:

class Foo(object):
    @property
    def property(self):
        return "ham"

    @property
    def other_property(self):
        return "spam"

The second property can't be defined since you've shadowed the name property in the class definition.

You can get around this by "renaming" property as in your example, but if I were you, I wouldn't mess with the built-ins in this way. It makes your code harder to follow.

Upvotes: 3

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