Question

Class Bar inherits from Foo:

class Foo(object):
      def foo_meth_1(self):
          return 'foometh1'
      def foo_meth_2(self):
          return 'foometh2'
class Bar(Foo):
      def bar_meth(self):
          return 'bar_meth'

Is there a way of turning all methods inherited from Foo private?

class Bar(Foo):
      def bar_meth(self):
          return 'bar_meth'
      def __foo_meth_1(self):
          return 'foometh1'
      def __foo_meth_2(self):
          return 'foometh2'

Answer 1

Python doesn’t have privates, only obfuscated method names. But I suppose you could iterate over the methods of the superclass when creating the instance, removing them from yourself and creating new obfuscatingly named method names for those functions. setattr and getattr could be useful if you use a function to create obfuscated names.

With that said, it’s a pretty cthuhlu-oid thing to do. You mention the intent is to keep the namespace cleaner, but this is more like mixing ammonia and chlorine. If the method needs to be hidden, hide it in the superclass. The don’t create instances of the superclass — instead create a specific class that wraps the hidden methods in public ones, which you could name the same thing but strip the leading whitespace.

Assuming I understand your intent correctly, I would suggest doing something like this:

class BaseFoo(object):
    def __init__(self):
        raise NotImplementedError('No instances of BaseFoo please.')
    def _foo(self):
        return 'Foo.'
    def _bar(self):
        return 'Bar.'

class HiddenFoo(BaseFoo):
    def __init__(self): pass

class PublicFoo(BaseFoo):
    def __init__(self): pass
    foo = BaseFoo._foo
    bar = BaseFoo._bar

def try_foobar(instance):
    print 'Trying ' + instance.__class__.__name__
    try:
        print 'foo: ' + instance.foo
        print 'bar: ' + instance.bar
    except AttributeError, e:
        print e

foo_1 = HiddenFoo()
foo_2 = PublicFoo()
try_foobar(foo_1)
try_foobar(foo_2)

And if PublicFoo.foo would do something more than BaseFoo.foo, you would write a wrapper that does whatever is needed, and then calls foo from the superclass.