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[Python-Dev] can't assign to function call

Hrvoje Niksic hrvoje.niksic at avl.com
Mon Mar 18 16:01:12 CET 2013 
On 03/18/2013 03:23 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
> The languages that permit you to assign to a function call all have
> some notion of a reference type.

Assigning to function calls is orthogonal to reference types.  For 
example, Python manages assignment to subscripts without having 
references just fine:

val = obj[index]      # val = obj.__getitem__(index)
obj[index] = val      # obj.__setitem__(index, val)

In analogy with that, Python could implement what looks like assignment 
to function call like this:

val = f(arg)          # val = f.__call__(arg)
f(arg) = val          # f.__setcall__(arg, val)

I am not arguing that this should be added, I'm only pointing out that 
Python's object customization is not fundamentally at odds with 
assignment to function calls.  Having said that, I am in fact arguing 
that Python doesn't need them.  All C++ uses of operator() overloads can 
be implemented with the subscript operator.

Even if one needs more different assignments than there are operators, 
Python can provide it as easily as C++.  For example, on 
std::vector::operator[] provides access to the container without error 
checking, and std::vector::at() checks bounds:

vec[i] = val      // no error checking
vec.at(i) = val   // error checking

This is trivially translated to Python as:

vec[i] = val      # primary functionality, use __setitem__
vec.at[i] = val   # secondary functionality, __setitem__ on a proxy
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