Class Decorators

Describing Decorators

• Decorators are used for performing extra processing after a class has been defined
• For example, a decorator could add a class to a database
• A class decorator is a function that takes a class as input and returns a class as output
• The following is an example:

>>> registry = {}
>>> def register(cls):
...     registry[cls.__clsid__] = cls
...     return cls

>>> @register
... class Foo(object):
...     __clsid__ = '123-456'
...     def bar(self):
...         pass

• An alternative way to do this would be:

>>> class Foo(object):
...     __clsid__ = '123-456'
...     def bar(self):
...         pass
register(Foo)

References

• Python Essential Reference