With a class in Python, how do I define a function to print every single instance of the class in a format defined in the function?
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Answer
I see two options in this case:
Garbage collector
import gc
for obj in gc.get_objects():
if isinstance(obj, some_class):
dome_something(obj)
This has the disadvantage of being very slow when you have a lot of objects, but works with types over which you have no control.
Use a mixin and weakrefs
from collections import defaultdict
import weakref
class KeepRefs(object):
__refs__ = defaultdict(list)
def __init__(self):
self.__refs__[self.__class__].append(weakref.ref(self))
@classmethod
def get_instances(cls):
for inst_ref in cls.__refs__[cls]:
inst = inst_ref()
if inst is not None:
yield inst
class X(KeepRefs):
def __init__(self, name):
super(X, self).__init__()
self.name = name
x = X("x")
y = X("y")
for r in X.get_instances():
print r.name
del y
for r in X.get_instances():
print r.name
In this case, all the references get stored as a weak reference in a list. If you create and delete a lot of instances frequently, you should clean up the list of weakrefs after iteration, otherwise there’s going to be a lot of cruft.
Another problem in this case is that you have to make sure to call the base class constructor. You could also override __new__
, but only the __new__
method of the first base class is used on instantiation. This also works only on types that are under your control.
Edit: The method for printing all instances according to a specific format is left as an exercise, but it’s basically just a variation on the for
-loops.