Question

My question is are the following two pieces of code run the same by the interpreter:

class A(object):
  def __init__(self):
     self.__x = None

  @property
  def x(self):
     if not self.__x:
        self.__x = ... #some complicated action
     return self.__x

and the much simpler:

class A(object):
  @property
  def x(self):
      return ... #some complicated action

I.e., is the interpreter smart enough to cache the property x?

My assumption is that x does not change – finding it is hard, but once you find it once there is no reason to find it again.

Answer 1

No, the getter will be called every time you access the property.