I'm currently using Python to parse CAN database files. I ran into a problem with lists during implementation and gave it a quick patch that makes it work, but it's kind of ugly and seems as if there's a more elegant solution.
I have defined an object CAN database and one of it's methods takes the file to be parsed, which contains definitions of messages in the database. I loop through each line in the file and when I come across a line indicating a message description, I create a temporary variable referencing an object I've defined for CAN messages, some of the members of which are lists. I put elements in these lists with a method based on the next handful of lines in the file.
Now when I'm done with this temporary object, I add it to the CAN database object. Since I no longer need the data referenced by this variable, I assign the value None to it and reinstantiate the clean slate variable on the next iteration through that detects a message descriptor. Or that was the plan.
When I go through the next iteration and need to use this variable, I add some values to these lists and find that they're not actually empty. It seems that despite assigning the variable to reference None the values in the lists persisted and were not cleaned up.
Below you can see my solution which was to stack more methods on specifically to get rid of the persisting list elements.
Here's some relevant portions of the file:
Parsing Loop
for line in file:
line = line.rstrip('\n')
line_number += 1 # keep track of the line number for error reporting
if line.startswith("BU_:"):
self._parseTransmittingNodes(line)
elif line.startswith("BO_"):
can_msg = self._parseMessageHeader(line).ResetSignals().ResetAttributes()
building_message = True
elif line.startswith(" SG_") and building_message:
can_msg.AddSignal(self._parseSignalEntry(line))
# can_msg.updateSubscribers()
elif line == "":
if building_message:
building_message = False
self._messages += [can_msg]
can_msg = None
Reset Methods
def ResetSignals(self):
"""
Flushes all the signals from the CANMessage object.
"""
self._signals = []
return self
def ResetAttributes(self):
"""
Flushes all the attributes from the CANMessage object.
"""
self._attributes = []
return self
How can I make this variable a fresh object every time? Should I have a method that clears all of it's internals instead of assigning it None like the IDispose interface in C#?
EDIT: Here's the full source for the CANMessage object:
class CANMessage:
"""
Contains information on a message's ID, length in bytes, transmitting node,
and the signals it contains.
"""
_name = ""
_canID = None
_idType = None
_dlc = 0
_txNode = ""
_comment = ""
_signals = list()
_attributes = list()
_iter_index = 0
_subscribers = list()
def __init__(self, msg_id, msg_name, msg_dlc, msg_tx):
"""
Constructor.
"""
self._canID = msg_id
self._name = msg_name
self._dlc = msg_dlc
self._txNode = msg_tx
def __iter__(self):
"""
Defined to make the object iterable.
"""
self._iter_index = 0
return self
def __next__(self):
"""
Defines the next CANSignal object to be returned in an iteration.
"""
if self._iter_index == len(self._signals):
self._iter_index = 0
raise StopIteration
self._iter_index += 1
return self._signals[self._iter_index-1]
def AddSignal(self, signal):
"""
Takes a CANSignal object and adds it to the list of signals.
"""
self._signals += [signal]
return self
def Signals(self):
"""
Gets the signals in a CANMessage object.
"""
return self._signals
def SetComment(self, comment_str):
"""
Sets the Comment property for the CANMessage.
"""
self._comment = comment_str
return self
def CANID(self):
"""
Gets the message's CAN ID.
"""
return self._canID
def AddValue(self, value_tuple):
"""
Adds a enumerated value mapping to the appropriate signal.
"""
for signal in self:
if signal.Name() == value_tuple[0]:
signal.SetValues(value_tuple[2])
break
return self
def AddAttribute(self, attr_tuple):
"""
Adds an attribute to the message.
"""
self._attributes.append(attr_tuple)
return self
def ResetSignals(self):
"""
Flushes all the signals from the CANMessage object.
"""
self._signals = []
return self
def ResetAttributes(self):
"""
Flushes all the attributes from the CANMessage object.
"""
self._attributes = []
return self
def Name(self):
return self._name
def TransmittingNode(self):
return self._txNode
def DLC(self):
return self._dlc
The problem you're seeing is because you used class attributes instead of instance attributes. If you move the initialization of the attributes you don't pass to __init__ from class scope into __init__, each instance will have its own set of lists.
Here's what that would look like:
class CANMessage:
"""
Contains information on a message's ID, length in bytes, transmitting node,
and the signals it contains.
"""
def __init__(self, msg_id, msg_name, msg_dlc, msg_tx):
"""
Constructor.
"""
self._canID = msg_id
self._name = msg_name
self._dlc = msg_dlc
self._txNode = msg_tx
self._name = ""
self._canID = None
self._idType = None
self._dlc = 0
self._txNode = ""
self._comment = ""
self._signals = list()
self._attributes = list()
self._iter_index = 0
self._subscribers = list()
# the rest of the class is unchanged, and not repeated here...