I still haven't got my head around decorators in Python.

I've already started using a lot of closures to do things like customize functions and classes in my coding.

Eg.

class Node :
    def __init__(self,val,children) :
        self.val = val
        self.children = children

def makeRunner(f) :
    def run(node) :
        f(node)
        for x in node.children :
            run(x)
    return run

tree=Node(1,[Node(2,[]),Node(3,[Node(4,[]),Node(5,[])])])

def pp(n) : print "%s," % n.val
printTree = makeRunner(pp)
printTree(tree)

As far as I can see, decorators are just a different syntax for doing something similar.

Instead of 

def pp(n) : print "%s," % n.val
printTree = makeRunner(pp)

I would write :

@makeRunner
def printTree(n) : print "%s," % n.val

Is this all there is to decorators? Or is there a fundamental difference that I've missed?

python decorator
Edit
Report