#18 Introspection

[Anonymous]

One of Python's most interesting features is the power
of "introspection".

What is introspection? "In everyday life, introspection
is the act of self-examination... In computer
programming, introspection refers to the ability to
examine something to determine what it is, what it
knows, and what it is capable of doing." [1]

Why is that useful?

Say you have are importing a class, but you don't
remember its properties.

With introspection, you can just ask, and the class
will return a list all its properties and methods.

But there are many other questions that we could ask:

* What is your name?
* What kind of object are you?
* What do you know?
* What can you do?
* Who are your parents?

Reference:

[1]
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-pyint.html

[Nobody/Anonymous]

Logged In: NO

I love this feature of python. Its great for documentation.
And maybe to add autocompletion to the gambas text editor.
Or showing params of the function you just typed in a small
box besides the cursor.

marvinh at mhome.de