Computed Attributes

As was the case when using properties, our first descriptor example of the prior section didn’t do much—it simply printed trace messages for attribute accesses. In practice, descriptors can also be used to compute attribute values each time they are fetched. The following illustrates—it’s a rehash of the same example we coded for properties, which uses a descriptor to automatically square an attribute’s value each time it is fetched:

class DescSquare:
    def __init__(self, start):                  # Each desc has own state
        self.value = start
    def __get__(self, instance, owner):         # On attr fetch
        return self.value ** 2
    def __set__(self, instance, value):         # On attr assign
        self.value = value                      # No delete or docs

class Client1:
    X = DescSquare(3)          # Assign descriptor instance to class attr

class Client2:
    X = DescSquare(32)         # Another instance in another client class
                               # Could also code 2 instances in same class
c1 = Client1()
c2 = Client2()

print(c1.X)                    # 3 ** 2
c1.X = 4
print(c1.X)                    # 4 ** 2
print(c2.X)                    # 32 ** 2

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When run, the output of this example is the same as that of the original property-based version, but here a descriptor class object is intercepting the attribute accesses:

9
16
1024