Metaprogramming with the type function

In my book, Practical Maya Programming with Python, I use Python’s type function for dynamically creating custom Maya nodes based on specifications, such as input and output attributes. I really love the type function*, so I thought I’d post another cool use of it.

I recently wrote this gem as a way to dynamically create exception types from error codes (it was for a now-defunct REST client):

def get_errtype(code):
    errtype = _errtype_cache.get(code)
    if errtype is None:
        errtype = type('Error%s' % code, (FrameworkError,), {})
        _errtype_cache[code] = errtype
    return errtype

Next is an uncommon form of Python’s except statement. Its argument can be any expression that evaluates to a single exception type or sequence of exception types. You can actually call a function in the argument to except!

try:
    return framework.do_something()
except framework.catch(404):
    return None

The framework.catch function is below. It looks up (and potentially creates) error types based on the error codes being caught:

def catch(*codes):
    return [get_errtype(c) for c in codes]

This sort of utility is why I wrote the type of book I did. Learning how to program in Python instead of MEL is all well and good. But you need to really see what Python is capable of to make big strides. I hope that with a more advanced understanding of Python, 3D developers can start creating frameworks and libraries, just like PyMEL, that other developers will work with and on for many years to come.

* I love the type function for a vain reason. It’s more obscure than decorators, but not as difficult to understand as metaclasses.