im_self of methods accessed via non trivial acquisition
I have already posted this question on the main zope list but have not received a reply. I hope som Acquisition god is following this list to shed some light on this matter. If there is some kind of definite documentation for the acquisition machinery especially for how methods are fetched across acquisition, I would appreciate a pointer to that Documentation. I allready tried to digest the ZDG (chapter on Acquisition) and the information on the 'AcquisitionMadness' page <http://www.zope.org//Wikis/zope-dev/AcquisitionMadness>. Is there any more *definite* information on Acquisition apart from the source code. The problem is, I have a bit difficulty reading the source since it's an extension class :-(... But now on to the details of my original question (this is a copy of my post to the zope list): My question regards the details of how the contents of im_self of an acquired method is calculated by the acquisition machinery. To illustrate this, I will depict an acquisition tree using the following symbols: O -- an acquisition wrapper <upcase letter> -- an acquitsition wrapper named for further reference [<lowercase letter>] -- an object -- -- the aq_parent link | -- the aq_self link I will use the following acquisition tree for illustration (it resembles the tree I have in my application, I just reduced it to make my point) A--O--[a] | | | [b] | O--B--O--[c] | | | | | [d] | | | O--[e] | | | [f] | [g] (Note: some of the a-g's are identical, but for simpler reference from the text, i have named them all differently ...) In this representation, the acquisition order is from bottom to top. The bottom most object is /A.aq_base/. Acquisition along containment only produces horizontal lines of acquisition wrappers. let /m/ be a method of the objekt /f/. The expression of interest is x := A.m I would expect /x.im_self/ to be an acquisition wrapper C C := A.f where (as far as i understand the rules of acquisition) /C.aq_parent == A/ But instead displaying /x.im_self/ yields the acquisition tree rooted at /B/ !! I find this a bit disturbing. My question: 'Is it a *bug* or a *feature*?'. I hope, I made my point clear. I hope someone can shed light on this subject, Stefan.
At 09:42 AM 1/18/02 +0100, Stefan Bund wrote:
A--O--[a] | | | [b] | O--B--O--[c] | | | | | [d] | | | O--[e] | | | [f] | [g]
...
let /m/ be a method of the objekt /f/. The expression of interest is
x := A.m
I would expect /x.im_self/ to be an acquisition wrapper C
C := A.f
where (as far as i understand the rules of acquisition) /C.aq_parent == A/
But instead displaying /x.im_self/ yields the acquisition tree rooted at /B/ !!
I find this a bit disturbing. My question: 'Is it a *bug* or a *feature*?'. I hope, I made my point clear.
Method rebinding is done only when an item is retrieved from the aq_self side, and only if im_self points to aq_self. If these conditions are met, a new binding is created which points to the acquisition wrapper. This is a feature, not a bug. If you rebind im_self on the aq_parent side, and your method assigns a value to an attribute of self, it will be assigned to the wrong object! It is safe in your example to bind m.im_self to B, because B.aq_base is f, the true self of m. But it is not safe to bind m.im_self to A, because A.aq_base is g -- another object altogether. I guess another way to look at it is that a method retrieved from an acquisition-wrapped object will always meet the condition that method.im_self.aq_base is the original object the method was retrieved from. This ensures that the method simply works with an acquisition-wrapped version of its original self.
participants (2)
-
Phillip J. Eby -
Stefan Bund