[python-package] make Booster and Dataset 'handle' attributes private (fixes #5313) #5947
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Fixes #5313.
Removes
handle
attribute from the public API in the Python package, with the following changes:Booster.handle -> Booster._handle
Dataset.handle -> Dataset._handle
_InnerPredictor.handle -> _InnerPredictor._handle
Why?
Making this implementation detail private allows changing it in the future without breaking user code.
@StrikerRUS originally recommended this, and I agree: #5313 (comment)
What about the R package?
Handles are already private there.
LightGBM/R-package/R/lgb.Booster.R
Line 107 in 9edea60
LightGBM/R-package/R/lgb.Dataset.R
Line 285 in 9edea60
How impactful will this be?
I don't know for sure what uses cases are out there where people are relying on the
handle
attribute being public in the Python package. But I did a quick check of popular open source projects relying onlightgbm
(https://www.wheelodex.org/projects/lightgbm/rdepends/) and didn't find any uses there:autogluon.tabular
(search)lightgbm_ray
(search)mlflow
(search)mlforecast
(search)optuna
(search)pycaret
(search)shap
(search)