Question

I’m trying to write something like:

class MyClass(object):
    @staticmethod
    def test(x, y, z=None):
        if not z:
            z = external_function(MyClass)

Is it possible in python to rewrite it to something like:

class MyClass(object):
    @staticmethod
    def test(x, y, z=external_function(MyClass)):
        pass

(The second code does not work as it is referencing MyClass which is not defined at this point)

Answer 1

It is not possible to rewrite the code that way. The closest you can do is something like:

class MyClass:
      pass

def test(x, y, z=external_function(MyClass):
      pass

MyClass.test = staticmethod(test)
del test

Note that this assumes Python 3; in Python 2, you may need to fiddle around with the new module. But though this is possible, the intention of the code is very non-obvious. It is better to stick to if z is None, or to refactor your code to not need this.