类实例的属性有3个属性:实例、属性名和属性值。

在常规属性访问中，实例充当字典，属性名充当字典查找值中的键。

实例(属性)——>值

在__slots__访问中，属性的名称充当字典，实例充当字典查找值中的键。

属性(实例)——>值

在flyweight模式中，属性的名称充当字典，值充当查找实例的字典中的键。

属性(value)——>实例

Another somewhat obscure use of __slots__ is to add attributes to an object proxy from the ProxyTypes package, formerly part of the PEAK project. Its ObjectWrapper allows you to proxy another object, but intercept all interactions with the proxied object. It is not very commonly used (and no Python 3 support), but we have used it to implement a thread-safe blocking wrapper around an async implementation based on tornado that bounces all access to the proxied object through the ioloop, using thread-safe concurrent.Future objects to synchronise and return results.

默认情况下，对代理对象的任何属性访问都将为您提供代理对象的结果。如果你需要在代理对象上添加一个属性，可以使用__slots__。

from peak.util.proxies import ObjectWrapper

class Original(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.name = 'The Original'

class ProxyOriginal(ObjectWrapper):

    __slots__ = ['proxy_name']

    def __init__(self, subject, proxy_name):
        # proxy_info attributed added directly to the
        # Original instance, not the ProxyOriginal instance
        self.proxy_info = 'You are proxied by {}'.format(proxy_name)

        # proxy_name added to ProxyOriginal instance, since it is
        # defined in __slots__
        self.proxy_name = proxy_name

        super(ProxyOriginal, self).__init__(subject)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    original = Original()
    proxy = ProxyOriginal(original, 'Proxy Overlord')

    # Both statements print "The Original"
    print "original.name: ", original.name
    print "proxy.name: ", proxy.name

    # Both statements below print 
    # "You are proxied by Proxy Overlord", since the ProxyOriginal
    # __init__ sets it to the original object 
    print "original.proxy_info: ", original.proxy_info
    print "proxy.proxy_info: ", proxy.proxy_info

    # prints "Proxy Overlord"
    print "proxy.proxy_name: ", proxy.proxy_name
    # Raises AttributeError since proxy_name is only set on 
    # the proxy object
    print "original.proxy_name: ", proxy.proxy_name

如果你要实例化很多(成百上千)同一个类的对象，你会想要使用__slots__。__slots__仅作为内存优化工具存在。

强烈建议使用__slots__来约束属性创建。

使用__slots__ pickle对象将无法使用默认的(最古老的)pickle协议;有必要指定一个更高的版本。

python的其他一些自省特性也可能受到不利影响。

除了在这里的其他答案中描述的无数优点-内存意识的紧凑实例，比更易变的__dict__承载实例更不容易出错等等-我发现使用__slots__提供了更清晰的类声明，因为类的实例变量显式地公开。

为了解决__slots__声明的继承问题，我使用了这个元类:

import abc

class Slotted(abc.ABCMeta):
    
    """ A metaclass that ensures its classes, and all subclasses,
        will be slotted types.
    """
    
    def __new__(metacls, name, bases, attributes, **kwargs):
        """ Override for `abc.ABCMeta.__new__(…)` setting up a
            derived slotted class.
        """
        if '__slots__' not in attributes:
            attributes['__slots__'] = tuple()
        
        return super(Slotted, metacls).__new__(metacls, name, # type: ignore
                                                        bases,
                                                        attributes,
                                                      **kwargs)

…如果在继承塔中声明为基类的元类，则确保从该基类派生的所有内容都将正确继承__slots__属性，即使中间类没有声明任何属性。像这样:

# note no __slots__ declaration necessary with the metaclass:
class Base(metaclass=Slotted):
    pass

# class is properly slotted, no __dict__:
class Derived(Base):
    __slots__ = 'slot', 'another_slot'

# class is also properly slotted:
class FurtherDerived(Derived):
    pass

除了其他答案，__slots__还通过将属性限制在预定义的列表中增加了一点排版安全性。这一直是JavaScript的一个问题，它还允许您向现有对象添加新属性，无论您是否有意。

下面是一个普通的unslot对象，它什么都不做，但是允许你添加属性:

class Unslotted:
    pass
test = Unslotted()
test.name = 'Fred'
test.Name = 'Wilma'

由于Python是区分大小写的，所以拼写相同但大小写不同的两个属性是不同的。如果你怀疑其中一个是打字错误，那就太倒霉了。

使用插槽，你可以限制它:

class Slotted:
    __slots__ = ('name')
    pass
test = Slotted()
test.name = 'Fred'      #   OK
test.Name = 'Wilma'     #   Error

这一次，第二个属性(Name)是不允许的，因为它不在__slots__集合中。

我建议在可能的情况下使用__slots__更好，以保持对对象的更多控制。

从Python 3.9开始，字典可用于通过__slots__向属性添加描述。没有描述的属性可以使用None，即使给出了描述，私有变量也不会出现。

class Person:

    __slots__ = {
        "birthday":
            "A datetime.date object representing the person's birthday.",
        "name":
            "The first and last name.",
        "public_variable":
            None,
        "_private_variable":
            "Description",
    }


help(Person)
"""
Help on class Person in module __main__:

class Person(builtins.object)
 |  Data descriptors defined here:
 |
 |  birthday
 |      A datetime.date object representing the person's birthday.
 |
 |  name
 |      The first and last name.
 |
 |  public_variable
"""