[Pyobjc-dev] Best way to rectify attribute/method name conflation?

[Zachery B. <zb...@ur...>]

In ObjC, as you all know, method names and attributes can share names. 
In Python, they can't.

I'm trying to translate some code from ObjC to Python, and I'm having a 
hard time figuring out the proper way to untangle this mess.

I've got a class called IconAndTextCell, which derives from 
NSTextFieldCell (and thence from NSActionCell and NSCell - which is far 
enough back for this example). NSCell provides both an attribute image 
and a selector image(), and I'm trying to provide for the 
copyWithZone_() selector of my new class. Using an example in ObjC, I 
have this:

[orig ObjC]
- copyWithZone:(NSZone *)zone {
     ImageAndTextCell *cell = (ImageAndTextCell *)[super 
copyWithZone:zone];
     cell->image = [image retain];
     return cell;
}

the second statement there looks like it's going to be a pain in the 
backside to translate. The immediate thing that looked reasonable to me 
was to generate a new accessor (getImage) and do this:

def copyWithZone_(self, zone):
     cell = super(IconAndTextCell, self).copyWithZone_(zone)
     cell.image = self.getImage()
     return cell

Now, which 'image' attribute did I just clobber in the copied cell? The 
attribute or the accessor? Surely one or the other is already clobbered 
by the bridge, owing to the fact that Python won't allow two attributes 
with the same name.

So, even going the route of using NSCell's setImage_() mutator:

def copyWithZone_(self, zone):
     cell = super(IconAndTextCell, self).copyWithZone_(zone)
     cell.setImage_(self.getImage())
     return cell

doesn't seem like it will help, as the underlying data structure 
(NSCell.image) will get clobbered. Either NSCell will lose an attribute 
or an accessor.

Am I right?

Zac