Status: Unmaintained

I am no longer actively maintaining this project.

autoself: automagically add method definition boilerplate

First, a disclaimer. Explicit self is good. Bytecode hacks are bad. Put them together and it's quite clear that THIS MODULE IS AN ABOMINATION! But, it's a neat excursion into python's lower levels and if you really really want to save yourself some keystrokes (like, you're desperately trying to hack into the Death Star's security system to override the trash compactor as its cold metal jaws slowly squeeze you to a purple paste) then it can help you do that. But, stop and consider Guido's proclamation on the matter:

Having self be explicit is a good thing. It makes the code clear by removing ambiguity about how a variable resolves. It also makes the difference between functions and methods small. "Things that will Not Change in Python 3000": http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3099/#core-language

This module is not about making 'self' implicit. It doesn't try to change the way methods work, or make any semantic changes whatsoever. It does one simple thing: automatically adds the boilerplate code to make a function do the "right thing" when called as a method.

It provides a single function 'autoself'. Given a function as argument, 'autoself' will return an equivalent function with the necessary boilerplate in place to act as a method. This will depend on the specifics of the function, and could mean:

• Inserting 'self' as the zeroth argument
• Inserting 'cls' as the zeroth argument, and wrapping with classmethod()
• Wrapping with staticmethod() if 'self' and 'cls' are not used
• Doing nothing, if it's not a proper function or is fine the way it is

For example, defining the method 'likes' using:

def likes(self,ham,eggs):
    print self, "likes", ham, "and", eggs

Is equivalent to defining it in the following way:

def likes(ham,eggs):
    print self, "likes", ham, "and", eggs
likes = autoself(likes)

Or neater, using the @autoself decorator. Of course, this isn't going to save you any typing! 'autoself' can also be applied to a class, and will autoselfify all functions in that class's dict:

class HeapsLessTyping: def likes(ham,eggs): # This gets 'self' automatically added as zeroth argument print self, "likes", ham, "and", eggs def hates(spam): # This becomes a classmethod, with 'cls' added as zeroth argument print "all", cls, "hate", spam def meh(toast): # This becomes a staticmethod print toast, "is boring" HeapsLessTyping = autoself(HeapsLessTyping)

When it becomes available (Python 2.6?), it will be even more convenient to use this with the class decorator syntax.

Want to save even more typing? 'autoself' can be used as a metaclass to work its magic on all classes defined in a module:

metaclass = autoself

class LookNoSelf: def init(my,special,args): self.my = my self.special = special self.args = args class FiveKeystrokesSaved: def init(this,works,great): self.this = this self.works = works self.great = great counter = 0 def ClassMethodsSaveEvenMore(): cls.counter += 1

Using this style, you can see a net saving in keystrokes with five method definitions or less!