The Python builtin property() historically does not allow inspect.getargspec to be called on any of __get__(), __set__(), or __delete__(). As of 3.4, it seems that this call now succeeds. However the answer it gives for __delete__() seems to be incorrect. Below illustrates that property.__delete__() accepts two arguments "self" and "instance" but inspect is giving a misleading answer: import inspect # userland descriptor class Descriptor(object): def __get__(self, instance, owner): if instance is None: return self def __set__(self, instance, value): pass def __delete__(self, instance): pass # class with property + userland descriptor class X(object): @property def foo(self): pass @foo.deleter def foo(self): pass bar = Descriptor() # property.__delete__ and Descriptor.__delete__ both accept two arguments: property.__delete__(X.foo, X()) Descriptor.__delete__(X.bar, X()) # on all versions, userland __delete__ produces 'self', 'instance' for args assert inspect.getargspec(Descriptor.__delete__) == (['self', 'instance'], None, None, None) try: # but on python 3.4, it returns ['instance'] insp = inspect.getargspec(property.__delete__) assert insp == (['self', 'instance'], None, None, None), insp except TypeError as e: # on all other python versions, raises # <slot wrapper '__delete__' of 'property' objects> is not a Python function print("Exception: %s" % e)

for context, we are currently creating wrappers around these methods in SQLAlchemy, and in the case of property dunders, we expect that exception and catch it. So when the exception doesn't happen, we assume the answer is correct, but in this case it's not - the answer getargspec() gives us cannot be used to create a correct wrapper unless there's some other detail I'm missing. hence this is backwards incompatible.

Larry, I think the problem is that >>> property.__delete__.__text_signature__ '(instance, /)' but should be something like '($self, instance, /)'. What do you think?

Larry, Nick, what do you think? I'd like this to be fixed in 3.4.0...

see also http://bugs.python.org/issue20828 as it seems like there might be a bigger pattern here (not sure).

New changeset c9861ec8754c by Yury Selivanov in branch 'default': Issue #20786: Fix signatures for dict.__delitem__ and property.__delete__ http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/c9861ec8754c

Mike, this is now fixed. I've created an issue for tracking of getting this fix in 3.4.0: #20829. Thanks for finding this bug!

New changeset 7ad0e19cc682 by Yury Selivanov in branch '3.4': Issue #20786: Fix signatures for dict.__delitem__ and property.__delete__ http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/7ad0e19cc682