Question

I think the concept is called overloading.
Right now I’m writing a class that will provide getter and setter methods, and am stuck on a design issue.

Both methods are one-liners that simply set a value, or return a value.

def set_number(self, num):

   self.count = num

def get_number(self):

   return self.count

Would it be better to save space and make the class “look” smaller by doing something that will basically combine the two methods into one and then just decide which line should be executed depending on whether the num argument is provided?

Or should I just stick to clarity and keep them separated? Some people feel that it’s a “waste of space” to keep all these one-liners on their own, while others disagree and prefer splitting them up.

Any reasons why I would choose one or the other?

Answer 1

In Python, you should prefer not to use getters and setters at all. Instead simply reference the count attribute directly, e.g. print instance.count or instance.count = 5

The point of getters and setters in other languages is for encapsulation and for future-proofing in case you need to add logic to the getters or setters. In Python you can accomplish this by later using property, which will not break your existing API.

@property
def number(self):
     # do extra logic if necessary
    return self.count

Properties can also have setters – see: http://docs.python.org/library/functions.html#property

Python is not Java. =)

Extra bonus reading material:

• http://tomayko.com/writings/getters-setters-fuxors
• http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2009/02/06/getters-and-setters-in-python/