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changing value of 'self' when subclassing int

Alex Martelli aleaxit at yahoo.com
Mon Feb 20 12:34:33 EST 2006 
David Coffin <dcoffin at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'd like to subclass int to support list access, treating the integer
> as if it were a list of bits.

Fine, but:

> Assigning bits to particular indices involves changing the value of  
> the integer itself, but changing 'self' obviously just alters the  

...integers are immutable, like all other numbers in Python: there is NO
way to "change the value of the integer itself".

I originally proposed to have "mutable numbers" (at least optionally) in
gmpy, but the reaction was a broadside against the idea, to the point
that I never got around to it -- gmpy includes a lot of functionality
for bit-level manipulation, but still only with immutable bitlists
(mapped into gmpy.mpz instances).


Alex
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