What's the Pythonic Way to Use Getters and Setters?

Try this: Python Property

The sample code is:

class C(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self._x = None

    @property
    def x(self):
        """I'm the 'x' property."""
        print("getter of x called")
        return self._x

    @x.setter
    def x(self, value):
        print("setter of x called")
        self._x = value

    @x.deleter
    def x(self):
        print("deleter of x called")
        del self._x


c = C()
c.x = 'foo'  # setter called
foo = c.x    # getter called
del c.x      # deleter called

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What's the pythonic way to use getters and setters?

The "Pythonic" way is not to use "getters" and "setters", but to use plain attributes, like the question demonstrates, and del for deleting (but the names are changed to protect the innocent... builtins):

value = 'something'

obj.attribute = value  
value = obj.attribute
del obj.attribute

If later, you want to modify the setting and getting, you can do so without having to alter user code, by using the property decorator:

class Obj:
    """property demo"""
    #
    @property            # first decorate the getter method
    def attribute(self): # This getter method name is *the* name
        return self._attribute
    #
    @attribute.setter    # the property decorates with `.setter` now
    def attribute(self, value):   # name, e.g. "attribute", is the same
        self._attribute = value   # the "value" name isn't special
    #
    @attribute.deleter     # decorate with `.deleter`
    def attribute(self):   # again, the method name is the same
        del self._attribute

(Each decorator usage copies and updates the prior property object, so note that you should use the same name for each set, get, and delete function/method.)

After defining the above, the original setting, getting, and deleting code is the same:

obj = Obj()
obj.attribute = value  
the_value = obj.attribute
del obj.attribute

You should avoid this:

def set_property(property,value):  
def get_property(property):  

Firstly, the above doesn't work, because you don't provide an argument for the instance that the property would be set to (usually self), which would be:

class Obj:

    def set_property(self, property, value): # don't do this
        ...
    def get_property(self, property):        # don't do this either
        ...

Secondly, this duplicates the purpose of two special methods, __setattr__ and __getattr__.

Thirdly, we also have the setattr and getattr builtin functions.

setattr(object, 'property_name', value)
getattr(object, 'property_name', default_value)  # default is optional

The @property decorator is for creating getters and setters.

For example, we could modify the setting behavior to place restrictions the value being set:

class Protective(object):

    @property
    def protected_value(self):
        return self._protected_value

    @protected_value.setter
    def protected_value(self, value):
        if acceptable(value): # e.g. type or range check
            self._protected_value = value

In general, we want to avoid using property and just use direct attributes.

This is what is expected by users of Python. Following the rule of least-surprise, you should try to give your users what they expect unless you have a very compelling reason to the contrary.