Acquisition

What it is and what it does

Acquisition is a Python mechanism that allows objects to dynamically acquire attributes from their containment hierarchy at runtime. Rather than requiring explicit inheritance, an object wrapped in an acquisition context can transparently access attributes from its container or parent objects. This is particularly useful in frameworks like Zope where object hierarchies are deep and dynamic, and behavior should depend on context.

The package provides two acquisition styles: implicit (automatic attribute lookup up the containment chain) and explicit (manual lookup via the aq_acquire method). Objects inherit from Acquisition.Implicit or Acquisition.Explicit to enable this behavior. Acquisition wrappers expose the wrapped object and its context through attributes like aq_parent, aq_self, and aq_base. The mechanism relies on ExtensionClass to implement the low-level wrapping and attribute resolution logic.

Use it for

• Building hierarchical object systems in web frameworks where child objects need access to parent context without explicit parameter passing.
• Implementing dynamic role-based access control where permissions are inherited from container objects.
• Creating nested component architectures where behavior adapts based on the object's position in the containment tree.
• Zope application development where acquisition is a core pattern for managing object relationships and context.
• Reducing boilerplate in deeply nested object structures by allowing implicit attribute resolution from ancestors.

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.

Install

acquisition on PyPI

Before you install

Medium install friction due to compiled extension requirements (wheels provided for Python 3.10–3.13 across multiple platforms). Actively maintained with recent releases; last commit 2026-08-14. Depends on ExtensionClass and zope.interface, both stable Zope ecosystem packages.

Requires ExtensionClass, a compiled C extension. Python 3.10 or later is required (supports 3.10, 3.11, 3.12, 3.13, 3.14).

License in practice

Licensed under ZPL-2.1 (Zope Public License 2.1), a permissive open-source license. License treatment is marked unclear in the fact sheet, so verify ZPL-2.1 compatibility with your project's legal requirements before use.

Quickstart

import ExtensionClass
from Acquisition import Implicit

class Container(ExtensionClass.Base):
    color = 'red'

class Item(Implicit):
    def get_color(self):
        return self.color

container = Container()
item = Item()
container.item = item
print(container.item.get_color())  # Outputs: red

Package facts

Evidence: acquisition-6.2-cp310-cp310-macosx_10_9_x86_64.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp310-cp310-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp310-cp310-manylinux1_i686.manylinux2014_i686.manylinux_2_17_i686.manylinux_2_5_i686.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp310-cp310-manylinux1_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux_2_5_x86_64.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp310-cp310-manylinux2014_aarch64.manylinux_2_17_aarch64.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp310-cp310-win_amd64.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp311-cp311-macosx_10_9_x86_64.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp311-cp311-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp311-cp311-manylinux1_i686.manylinux2014_i686.manylinux_2_17_i686.manylinux_2_5_i686.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp311-cp311-manylinux1_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux_2_5_x86_64.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp311-cp311-manylinux2014_aarch64.manylinux_2_17_aarch64.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp311-cp311-win_amd64.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp312-cp312-macosx_10_9_x86_64.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp312-cp312-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp312-cp312-manylinux1_i686.manylinux2014_i686.manylinux_2_17_i686.manylinux_2_5_i686.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp312-cp312-manylinux1_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux_2_5_x86_64.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp312-cp312-manylinux2014_aarch64.manylinux_2_17_aarch64.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp312-cp312-win_amd64.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp313-cp313-macosx_10_9_x86_64.whl; acquisition-6.2-cp313-cp313-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl

Tags

More Application Frameworks packages

See also docstring-inheritance · zope.container · acquire · zope.security · Persistence · zope.proxy · harvesters · zope.annotation · zope.component · zope.hookable