Question

I want to be able to create a python decorator that automatically “registers” class methods in a global repository (with some properties).

Example code:

class my_class(object):

    @register(prop1,prop2)
    def my_method( arg1,arg2 ):
       # method code here...

    @register(prop3,prop4)
    def my_other_method( arg1,arg2 ):
       # method code here...

I want that when loading is done, somewhere there will be a dict containing:

{ "my_class.my_method"       : ( prop1, prop2 )
  "my_class.my_other_method" : ( prop3, prop4 ) }

Is this possible?

Answer 1

Not with just a decorator, no. But a metaclass can automatically work with a class after its been created. If your register decorator just makes notes about what the metaclass should do, you can do the following:

registry = {}

class RegisteringType(type):
    def __init__(cls, name, bases, attrs):
        for key, val in attrs.iteritems():
            properties = getattr(val, 'register', None)
            if properties is not None:
                registry['%s.%s' % (name, key)] = properties

def register(*args):
    def decorator(f):
        f.register = tuple(args)
        return f
    return decorator

class MyClass(object):
    __metaclass__ = RegisteringType
    @register('prop1','prop2')
    def my_method( arg1,arg2 ):
        pass

    @register('prop3','prop4')
    def my_other_method( arg1,arg2 ):
        pass

print registry

printing

{'MyClass.my_other_method': ('prop3', 'prop4'), 'MyClass.my_method': ('prop1', 'prop2')}