Why can't Python decorators be chained across definitions?

Question

Why arn\'t the following two scripts equivalent?

(Taken from another question: Understanding Python Decorators)

def makebold(fn):
    def wrapped():
             


        

Answer 1

The problem with the second example is that

@makebold
def makeitalic(fn):
    def wrapped():
        return "" + fn() + ""
    return wrapped

is trying to decorate makeitalic, the decorator, and not wrapped, the function it returns.

You can do what I think you intend with something like this:

def makeitalic(fn):
    @makebold
    def wrapped():
        return "" + fn() + ""
    return wrapped

Here makeitalic uses makebold to decorate wrapped.