The Power of Python Descriptors

let say we have a class named Employee which contains an attribute for employee’s salary and we need to check if the salary value is a Number before assigning the value to the salary attribute.

we have two ways to define a descriptor

let’s try to write a descriptor to validate the salary attribute value using classes:

Let’s test this descriptor:

now let’s try to assign an invalid value for the salary attribute

let’s try to write a descriptor to validate the salary attribute value using property:

Let’s test this descriptor:

now let’s try to assign an invalid value for the salary attribute

let’s test our descriptor:

NOTE: Descriptors can be used to limit the access for an attribute ex: read-only attribute or write-only attribute

Python descriptors are powerful and flexible for attribute management but use them with carefully to avoid unnecessary code complexity stemming from overriding the normal behaviors of an object.

Related posts:

So earlier today Colin Cowherd did that thing he does everyday. He went on another one of his insane, completely absurd rants. The one today was directed at Philadelphia. Not just a specific Philly…

Angular using providedIn and providers arrays which is based on the principle of singleton design pattern. A singleton service in angular is a service for which there exists only one instance in an…

Do you wonder why APIs for text classification are used by big companies? Here we’ll tell you the answer! Also, you will get to know an incredible API that can do that work with the less amount of…