consider renaming the "id" parameter for constructs (reserved word in Python)

[bverhoeve]

Note: for support questions, please first reference our documentation, then use Stackoverflow. This repository's issues are intended for feature requests and bug reports.

• I'm submitting a ...

  • 🪲 bug report
  • 🚀 feature request
  • 📚 construct library gap
  • ☎️ security issue or vulnerability => Please see policy
  • ❓ support request => Please see note at the top of this template.

• What is the current behavior?
  To create a new Construct (or any other Resource) using CDK, the constructor in Python has the following syntax:

 class aws_cdk.core.Construct(scope, id)

The id parameter serves as a unique id for CloudFormation. Naming a parameter id in Python is not really good practice, since id() is a built-in function in the Python standard library, which represents the address of the object in memory in CPython. (see https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#id)

I think this could lead to potentials errors down the line for users that use the Python variant of CDK, since the id parameter could clash with the id() function.

• What is the expected behavior (or behavior of feature suggested)?
  If possible, renaming the id parameter to something like identifier or cdk_id would avoid having this parameter clash with the built-in id() function.

• What is the motivation / use case for changing the behavior or adding this feature?
  Clashes with Python standard library built-in functions.

• Please tell us about your environment:

  • CDK CLI Version: 0.36.2
  • Module Version: 0.36.2.0
  • OS: [all]
  • Language: [Python ]

• Other information (e.g. detailed explanation, stacktraces, related issues, suggestions how to fix, links for us to have context, eg. associated pull-request, stackoverflow, gitter, etc)

[SomayaB]

Hi @bverhoeve, thanks for submitting this request! We will look into this and someone will update this issue when there is movement.

[SamStephens]

@eladb Look through the linked issues, I cannot see any discussion of this request, it appears to have been closed with no discussion. It'd be great to understand the motivations behind not doing this.

[bazd]

@eladb Look through the linked issues, I cannot see any discussion of this request, it appears to have been closed with no discussion. It'd be great to understand the motivations behind not doing this.

I just tested this with CDK 2.0.0 and the sample-app, and looks like they have renamed it to 'construct_id'.

class HelloCdkStack(Stack):
def init(self, scope: Construct, construct_id: str, **kwargs) -> None:
super().init(scope, construct_id, **kwargs)

[SamStephens]

@bazd that may be the case in the sample application, but the actual CDK constructs themselves still use the keyword id. See for example the constructor of Stack that's being called above via super.init. If you rewrote that code sample to use named parameters, it'd be:

class HelloCdkStack(Stack):
    def init(self, scope: Construct, construct_id: str, **kwargs) -> None:
        super().init(
            scope=scope,
            id=construct_id,
            **kwargs,
        )

[bazd]

@bazd that may be the case in the sample application, but the actual CDK constructs themselves still use the keyword id. See for example the constructor of Stack that's being called above via super.init. If you rewrote that code sample to use named parameters, it'd be:

class HelloCdkStack(Stack):
    def init(self, scope: Construct, construct_id: str, **kwargs) -> None:
        super().init(
            scope=scope,
            id=construct_id,
            **kwargs,
        )

Yes, cheers for clarifying. They haven't addressed it at all which is disappointing considering v2 has just been released.