Python Descriptors

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. About Descriptors

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. What Is a Descriptor?

      • Jacob Zimmerman

      Pages 3-4

   3. The Descriptor Protocol

      • Jacob Zimmerman

      Pages 5-6

   4. What Are Descriptors Good For?

      • Jacob Zimmerman

      Pages 7-8

   5. Descriptors in the Standard Library

      • Jacob Zimmerman

      Pages 9-13

   6. Attribute Access and Descriptors

      • Jacob Zimmerman

      Pages 15-21

3. Making Descriptors

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 23-23

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   2. Which Methods Are Needed?

      • Jacob Zimmerman

      Pages 25-28

   3. Storing the Attributes

      • Jacob Zimmerman

      Pages 29-40

   4. Read-Only Descriptors

      • Jacob Zimmerman

      Pages 41-45

   5. Writing __delete__()

      • Jacob Zimmerman

      Pages 47-47

   6. Descriptors are Classes Too

      • Jacob Zimmerman

      Pages 49-51

   7. Reusing the Wheel

      • Jacob Zimmerman

      Pages 53-57

   8. Other Uses of Descriptors in the World

      • Jacob Zimmerman

      Pages 59-60

4. Back Matter

   Pages 61-64

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This short book on Python descriptors is a collection of knowledge and ideas from many sources on dealing with and creating descriptors. And, after going through the things all descriptors have in common, the author explores ideas that have multiple ways of being implemented as well as completely new ideas never seen elsewhere before.



This truly is a comprehensive guide to creating Python descriptors. As a bonus: A pip install-able library, descriptor_tools, was written alongside this book and is an open source library on GitHub.



There aren't many good resources out there for writing Python descriptors, and extremely few books. This is a sad state of affairs, as it makes it difficult for Python developers to get a really good understanding of how descriptors work and the techniques to avoid the big gotchas associated with workingwith them.



What You Will Learn

• Discover descriptor protocols
  
• Master attribute access and how it applies to descriptors
  
• Make descriptors and discover why you should
  
• Store attributes
  
• Create read-only descriptors and _delete()
  
• Explore the descriptor classes
  
• Apply the other uses of descriptors and more
  

Who This Book Is For

Experienced Python coders, programmers and developers.

• Python
• descriptors
• coding
• Standard Library
• software
• programming

• Placeholder, USA

  Jacob Zimmerman

Jacob Zimmerman is a certified Java programmer and a Python and Kotlin enthusiast.

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