How to trigger function on value change?

Question

I realise this question has to do with event-handling and i've read about Python event-handler a dispatchers, so either it did not answer my question or i completely missed out the information.

I want method m() of object A to be triggered whenever value v is changing:

For instance (assuming money makes happy):

global_wealth = 0

class Person()
    def __init__(self):
        self.wealth = 0
        global global_wealth
        # here is where attribute should be
        # bound to changes in 'global_wealth'
        self.happiness = bind_to(global_wealth, how_happy)

    def how_happy(self, global_wealth):
        return self.wealth / global_wealth

So whenever the global_wealth value is changed, all instances of the class Person should change their happiness value accordingly.

NB: I had to edit the question since the first version seemed to suggest i needed getter and setter methods. Sorry for the confusion.

Answer 1

You need to use the Observer Pattern. In the following code, a person subscribes to receive updates from the global wealth entity. When there is a change to global wealth, this entity then alerts all its subscribers (observers) that a change happened. Person then updates itself.

I make use of properties in this example, but they are not necessary. A small warning: properties work only on new style classes, so the (object) after the class declarations are mandatory for this to work.

class GlobalWealth(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self._global_wealth = 10.0
        self._observers = []

    @property
    def global_wealth(self):
        return self._global_wealth

    @global_wealth.setter
    def global_wealth(self, value):
        self._global_wealth = value
        for callback in self._observers:
            print('announcing change')
            callback(self._global_wealth)

    def bind_to(self, callback):
        print('bound')
        self._observers.append(callback)


class Person(object):
    def __init__(self, data):
        self.wealth = 1.0
        self.data = data
        self.data.bind_to(self.update_how_happy)
        self.happiness = self.wealth / self.data.global_wealth

    def update_how_happy(self, global_wealth):
        self.happiness = self.wealth / global_wealth


if __name__ == '__main__':
    data = GlobalWealth()
    p = Person(data)
    print(p.happiness)
    data.global_wealth = 1.0
    print(p.happiness)