Décorateurs

Décorateurs, in programming, are a syntactic sugar feature that allows for modifying or enhancing functions or methods in a clear and readable way. They are inspired by the decorator pattern in software design. A decorator is essentially a callable that takes another callable as input and returns a new callable, often by wrapping the original. This wrapping allows for the addition of new functionality before or after the execution of the original callable, or even to replace it entirely.

The primary benefit of using decorators is to reduce code duplication and improve code organization. Common use cases include logging function calls, access control, timing execution, and memoization (caching results). Instead of repeating the same logic in multiple functions, a decorator can be applied to abstract that logic. This leads to a more declarative style of programming, where the core logic of a function is separated from its auxiliary concerns.

In languages like Python, decorators are implemented using the `@decorator_name` syntax placed directly above the function or method definition. This syntax is a more concise alternative to explicitly calling the decorator function and reassigning the result. The underlying mechanism involves passing the decorated function as an argument to the decorator function, which then returns a modified version of that function. This powerful feature promotes cleaner, more maintainable, and more expressive code.