inheritance - How to cast object in Python

Question

I have two classes (let's call them Working and ReturnStatement) which I can't modify, but I want to extend both of them with logging. The trick is that the Working's method returns a ReturnStatement object, so the new MutantWorking object also returns ReturnStatement unless I can cast it to MutantReturnStatement. Saying with code:

# these classes can't be changed
class ReturnStatement(object):
    def act(self):
        print "I'm a ReturnStatement."

class Working(object):
    def do(self):
        print "I am Working."
        return ReturnStatement()

# these classes should wrap the original ones
class MutantReturnStatement(ReturnStatement):
    def act(self):
        print "I'm wrapping ReturnStatement."
        return ReturnStatement().act()

class MutantWorking(Working):
    def do(self):
        print "I am wrapping Working."
        # !!! this is not working, I'd need that casting working !!!
        return (MutantReturnStatement) Working().do()

rs = MutantWorking().do() #I can use MutantWorking just like Working
print "--" # just to separate output
rs.act() #this must be MutantReturnState.act(), I need the overloaded method

The expected result:
I am wrapping Working.
I am Working.
--
I'm wrapping ReturnStatement.
I'm a ReturnStatement.

Is it possible to solve the problem? I'm also curious if the problem can be solved in PHP, too. Unless I get a working solution I can't accept the answer, so please write working code to get accepted.

Answer 1

There is no casting as the other answers already explained. You can make subclasses or make modified new types with the extra functionality using decorators.

Here's a complete example (credit to How to make a chain of function decorators?). You do not need to modify your original classes. In my example the original class is called Working.

# decorator for logging
def logging(func):
    def wrapper(*args, **kwargs):
        print func.__name__, args, kwargs
        res = func(*args, **kwargs)
        return res
    return wrapper

# this is some example class you do not want to/can not modify
class Working:
    def Do(c):
        print("I am working")
    def pr(c,printit):   # other example method
        print(printit)
    def bla(c):          # other example method
        c.pr("saybla")

# this is how to make a new class with some methods logged:
class MutantWorking(Working):
    pr=logging(Working.pr)
    bla=logging(Working.bla)
    Do=logging(Working.Do)

h=MutantWorking()
h.bla()
h.pr("Working")                                                  
h.Do()

this will print

h.bla()
bla (<__main__.MutantWorking instance at 0xb776b78c>,) {}
pr (<__main__.MutantWorking instance at 0xb776b78c>, 'saybla') {}
saybla

pr (<__main__.MutantWorking instance at 0xb776b78c>, 'Working') {}
Working

Do (<__main__.MutantWorking instance at 0xb776b78c>,) {}
I am working

In addition, I would like to understand why you can not modify a class. Did you try? Because, as an alternative to making a subclass, if you feel dynamic you can almost always modify an old class in place:

Working.Do=logging(Working.Do)
ReturnStatement.Act=logging(ReturnStatement.Act)

Update: Apply logging to all methods of a class

As you now specifically asked for this. You can loop over all members and apply logging to them all. But you need to define a rule for what kind of members to modify. The example below excludes any method with __ in its name .

import types
def hasmethod(obj, name):
    return hasattr(obj, name) and type(getattr(obj, name)) == types.MethodType

def loggify(theclass):
  for x in filter(lambda x:"__" not in x, dir(theclass)):
     if hasmethod(theclass,x):
        print(x)
        setattr(theclass,x,logging(getattr(theclass,x)))
  return theclass

With this all you have to do to make a new logged version of a class is:

@loggify
class loggedWorker(Working): pass

Or modify an existing class in place:

loggify(Working)