What are some common uses for Python decorators? [closed]

Answer 1

Decorators are used either to define a function's properties or as boilerplate that alters it; it's possible but counter-intuitive for them to return completely different functions. Looking at the other responses here, it seems like one of the most common uses is to limit the scope of some other process - be it logging, profiling, security checks, etc.

CherryPy uses object-dispatching to match URLs to objects and, eventually, methods. Decorators on those methods signal whether or not CherryPy is even allowed to use those methods. For example, adapted from the tutorial:

class HelloWorld:

    ...

    def secret(self):
        return "You shouldn't be here."

    @cherrypy.expose
    def index(self):
        return "Hello world!"

cherrypy.quickstart(HelloWorld())

Answer 2

I use decorators mainly for timing purposes

def time_dec(func):

  def wrapper(*arg):
      t = time.clock()
      res = func(*arg)
      print func.func_name, time.clock()-t
      return res

  return wrapper


@time_dec
def myFunction(n):
    ...

Answer 3

I use this decorator to fix parameter

def fill_it(arg):
    if isinstance(arg, int):
        return "wan" + str(arg)
    else:
        try:
            # number present as string
            if str(int(arg)) == arg:
                return "wan" + arg
            else:
                # This should never happened
                raise Exception("I dont know this " + arg)
                print "What arg?"
        except ValueError, e:
            return arg

def fill_wanname(func):
    def wrapper(arg):
        filled = fill_it(arg)
        return func(filled)
    return wrapper

@fill_wanname
def get_iface_of(wanname):
    global __iface_config__
    return __iface_config__[wanname]['iface']

this written when I refactor some functions need to passed argument "wanN" but in my old codes, I passed N or 'N' only

Answer 4

I've used them for synchronization.

import functools

def synchronized(lock):
    """ Synchronization decorator """
    def wrap(f):
        @functools.wraps(f)
        def newFunction(*args, **kw):
            lock.acquire()
            try:
                return f(*args, **kw)
            finally:
                lock.release()
        return newFunction
    return wrap

As pointed out in the comments, since Python 2.5 you can use a with statement in conjunction with a threading.Lock (or multiprocessing.Lock since version 2.6) object to simplify the decorator's implementation to just:

import functools

def synchronized(lock):
    """ Synchronization decorator """
    def wrap(f):
        @functools.wraps(f)
        def newFunction(*args, **kw):
            with lock:
                return f(*args, **kw)
        return newFunction
    return wrap

Regardless, you then use it like this:

import threading
lock = threading.Lock()

@synchronized(lock)
def do_something():
  # etc

@synchronzied(lock)
def do_something_else():
  # etc

Basically it just puts lock.acquire() / lock.release() on either side of the function call.

Answer 5

I use them mainly for debugging (wrapper around a function that prints its arguments and result) and verification (e.g. to check if an argument is of correct type or, in the case of web application, if the user has sufficient privileges to call a particular method).

Answer 6

I used them recently, while working on social networking web application. For Community/Groups, I was supposed to give membership authorization to create new discussion and reply to a message you have to be the member of that particular group. So, I wrote a decorator @membership_required and put that where I required in my view.