Question

File "clienttest.py", line 3, in <module>
   x = handle.Client()
File "/home/tmac/Handle/handle.py", line 131, in __init__
   Task.CLT_UPDATE:self.__clt_updates,
AttributeError: 'Client' object has no attribute '_Client__clt_updates'

my code throws this error when creating an instance but the function exists. It seems to be prepending _Client to it and i cant figure out why

heres the class definition

class Client(threading.Thread):
    def __init__(self):
        threading.Thread.__init__(self)
        #create task q
        self.tasks = Queue.Queue(maxsize=0)
        print str(self)
        #create database
        self.database = server.Database()
        self.database.loadconfig()

        #create networking
        self.network = network.Network(self.tasks)

        #put startup tasks
        self.network.cmd_q.put(NetworkCommand(NetworkCommand.CONNECT,('127.0.0.1',self.database.config['Handle']['port'])))

        #create gui
        self.gui = gui.Gui(self)
        #define task handlers
        self.handlers = {
                Task.CLT_UPDATE:self.__clt_updates,
                            ^----The problem seems to be here--------^
                Task.CLT_INPUT:self.__clt_input,
                Task.CLT_LINEUP:self.__clt_lineup
                }

        #define alive flag
        self.alive = threading.Event()
        self.alive.set()

        #setup logging
        logging.basicConfig(level=self.loglvl, filename='client.log', format='%(asctime)s %(name)s %(levelname)s: %(message)s', datefmt='%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
        self.log = logging.getLogger('CLIENT')



        def run(self):
            self.network.start()
            self.gui.initscreen()
            while self.alive.isSet():
                try:
                    task = self.tasks.get(True, 0.1)
                    self.log.debug('Got Task: ' + task.stype[task.type])
                    self.handlers[task.type](task)

                except Queue.Empty:
                    pass


        def addtask(self, task):
            self.tasks.put(task)

        def __clt_updates(self, task):
            raise NotImplemented()

        def __clt_input(self, task):
            pack = Packet(Packet.INPUT,task.data)
            self.network.cmd_q.put(NetworkCommand(NetworkCommand.SEND,pack))
            self.log.debug(':[H]Sent Command: ' + task.data)

        def __clt_lineup(self, task):
            self.gui.addline(task.data)
            self.log.debug(':[H]Line Update: ' + task.data)

Answer 1

Double underscores in Python cause the Python name mangling to kick in at run time. Name mangling will prepend the class name to each method in the class that has a name starting with 2 underscores. If you want privateish methods without name mangling, use single underscore.

As noted below in the comments, it looks like you also have an indentation problem. My guess is that you intend to be creating those methods as class members, but as the question has them here, they are actually indented under __init__.