Making Variable Text Output More Pythonic?

[Casey]

Hi,

I have some classes that print variable outputs depending on their
internal state, like so:

def __str__(self):
out = []
if self.opt1: out += ['option 1 is %s' % self.opt1']
if self.opt2: out += ['option 2 is %s' % self.opt2']
....
return '\n'.join(out)

Is there any way to make this cleaner?

[Arnaud Delobelle]

Casey <ca***********@gmail.comwrites:

Hi,

I have some classes that print variable outputs depending on their
internal state, like so:

def __str__(self):
out = []
if self.opt1: out += ['option 1 is %s' % self.opt1']
if self.opt2: out += ['option 2 is %s' % self.opt2']
....
return '\n'.join(out)

Is there any way to make this cleaner?

Maybe.

Have a dictionary of options rather than individual attributes;
options not in the dictionary are not set. E.g.

mask = {
'opt1': 'option 1 is %s',
'opt2': 'option 2 is %s',
...
}

def __str__(self):
return '\n'.join(mask[o] % v for o,v in self.options.iteritems())

--
Arnaud

[afrobeard]

Arnaud's code wont work if self.opt1 is None, an empty list, an empty
tuple, False, etc, because all these evaluate to false. They wont
print the internal state of these variables. [Just an informational
notice, this may be the behavior you expect]

Secondly, I'm not sure if you know the variable names from before hand
in which case Casey's approach will work, or you need to know them via
introspection. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-pyint.html
[Scroll down to attributes].

On May 16, 1:44*am, Arnaud Delobelle <[e-mail]:

Casey <[e-mail]:

Hi,

I have some classes that print variable outputs depending on their
internal state, like so:

def __str__(self):
* * out = []
* * if self.opt1: out += ['option 1 is %s' % self.opt1']
* * if self.opt2: out += ['option 2 is %s' % self.opt2']
* * ....
* * return '\n'.join(out)

Is there any way to make this cleaner?

Maybe.

Have a dictionary of options rather than individual attributes;
options not in the dictionary are not set. E.g.

mask = {
* * 'opt1': 'option 1 is %s',
* * 'opt2': 'option 2 is %s',
* * ...
* * }

def __str__(self):
* * return '\n'.join(mask[o] % v for o,v in self.options.iteritems())

--
Arnaud

[Arnaud Delobelle]

afrobeard <af*******@gmail.comwrites:

Arnaud's code wont work if self.opt1 is None, an empty list, an empty
tuple, False, etc, because all these evaluate to false. They wont
print the internal state of these variables. [Just an informational
notice, this may be the behavior you expect]

??? My suggestion is to get rid of attributes altogether and does not
test any truth values.

Secondly, I'm not sure if you know the variable names from before hand
in which case Casey's approach will work, or you need to know them via
introspection. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-pyint.html
[Scroll down to attributes].

On May 16, 1:44*am, Arnaud Delobelle <[e-mail]:

>Casey <[e-mail]:

Hi,

I have some classes that print variable outputs depending on their
internal state, like so:

def __str__(self):
* * out = []
* * if self.opt1: out += ['option 1 is %s' % self.opt1']
* * if self.opt2: out += ['option 2 is %s' % self.opt2']
* * ....
* * return '\n'.join(out)

Is there any way to make this cleaner?

Maybe.

Have a dictionary of options rather than individual attributes;
options not in the dictionary are not set. E.g.

mask = {
* * 'opt1': 'option 1 is %s',
* * 'opt2': 'option 2 is %s',
* * ...
* * }

def __str__(self):
* * return '\n'.join(mask[o] % v for o,v in self.options.iteritems())

--
Arnaud

[I-T]

A thousand apologies for my ignorance. I'll try not to get names mixed
up again in the future.

On May 16, 8:42*pm, Arnaud Delobelle <[e-mail]:

afrobeard <[e-mail]:

Arnaud's code wont work if self.opt1 is None, an empty list, an empty
tuple, False, etc, because all these evaluate to false. They wont
print the internal state of these variables. [Just an informational
notice, this may be the behavior you expect]

??? My suggestion is to get rid of attributes altogether and does not
test any truth values.

Secondly, I'm not sure if you know the variable names from before hand
in which case Casey's approach will work, or you need to know them via
introspection.http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-pyint.html
[Scroll down to attributes].

On May 16, 1:44*am, Arnaud Delobelle <[e-mail]:

Casey <[e-mail]:
Hi,

I have some classes that print variable outputs depending on their
internal state, like so:

def __str__(self):
* * out = []
* * if self.opt1: out += ['option 1 is %s' % self.opt1']
* * if self.opt2: out += ['option 2 is %s' % self.opt2']
* * ....
* * return '\n'.join(out)

Is there any way to make this cleaner?

Maybe.

Have a dictionary of options rather than individual attributes;
options not in the dictionary are not set. E.g.

mask = {
* * 'opt1': 'option 1 is %s',
* * 'opt2': 'option 2 is %s',
* * ...
* * }

def __str__(self):
* * return '\n'.join(mask[o] % v for o,v in self.options.iteritems())

--
Arnaud