PYTHON - CLASSES AND OBJECTSPython has been an object-oriented language since it existed. Because of this, creating and using classes and objects are downright easy. This chapter helps you become an expert in using Python's object-oriented programming support. If you do not have any previous experience with object-oriented (OO) programming, you may want to consult an introductory course on it or at least a tutorial of some sort so that you have a grasp of the basic concepts. However, here is small introduction of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) to bring you at speed: Overview of OOP Terminology
The class statement creates a new class definition. The name of the class immediately follows the keyword class followed by a colon as follows:
class ClassName:
'Optional class documentation string' class_suite
Following is the example of a simple Python class:
class Employee:
'Common base class for all employees' empCount = 0 def __init__(self, name, salary): self.name = name self.salary = salary Employee.empCount += 1 def displayCount(self): print "Total Employee %d" % Employee.empCount def displayEmployee(self): print "Name : ", self.name, ", Salary: ", self.salary
To create instances of a class, you call the class using class name and pass in whatever arguments its __init__ method accepts.
"This would create first object of Employee class"
emp1 = Employee("Zara", 2000) "This would create second object of Employee class" emp2 = Employee("Manni", 5000) Accessing Attributes You access the object's attributes using the dot operator with object. Class variable would be accessed using class name as follows:
emp1.displayEmployee()
emp2.displayEmployee() print "Total Employee %d" % Employee.empCount Now, putting all the concepts together:
#!/usr/bin/python
class Employee: 'Common base class for all employees' empCount = 0 def __init__(self, name, salary): self.name = name self.salary = salary Employee.empCount += 1 def displayCount(self): print "Total Employee %d" % Employee.empCount def displayEmployee(self): print "Name : ", self.name, ", Salary: ", self.salary "This would create first object of Employee class" emp1 = Employee("Zara", 2000) "This would create second object of Employee class" emp2 = Employee("Manni", 5000) emp1.displayEmployee() emp2.displayEmployee() print "Total Employee %d" % Employee.empCount When the above code is executed, it produces the following result:
Name : Zara ,Salary: 2000
Name : Manni ,Salary: 5000 Total Employee 2 You can add, remove, or modify attributes of classes and objects at any time:
emp1.age = 7 # Add an 'age' attribute.
emp1.age = 8 # Modify 'age' attribute. del emp1.age # Delete 'age' attribute. Instead of using the normal statements to access attributes, you can use the following functions:
hasattr(emp1, 'age') # Returns true if 'age' attribute exists
getattr(emp1, 'age') # Returns value of 'age' attribute setattr(emp1, 'age', 8) # Set attribute 'age' at 8 delattr(empl, 'age') # Delete attribute 'age' Built-In Class Attributes Every Python class keeps following built-in attributes and they can be accessed using dot operator like any other attribute:
#!/usr/bin/python
class Employee: 'Common base class for all employees' empCount = 0 def __init__(self, name, salary): self.name = name self.salary = salary Employee.empCount += 1 def displayCount(self): print "Total Employee %d" % Employee.empCount def displayEmployee(self): print "Name : ", self.name, ", Salary: ", self.salary print "Employee.__doc__:", Employee.__doc__ print "Employee.__name__:", Employee.__name__ print "Employee.__module__:", Employee.__module__ print "Employee.__bases__:", Employee.__bases__ print "Employee.__dict__:", Employee.__dict__ When the above code is executed, it produces the following result:
Employee.__doc__: Common base class for all employees
Employee.__name__: Employee Employee.__module__: __main__ Employee.__bases__: () Employee.__dict__: {'__module__': '__main__', 'displayCount': <function displayCount at 0xb7c84994>, 'empCount': 2, 'displayEmployee': <function displayEmployee at 0xb7c8441c>, '__doc__': 'Common base class for all employees', '__init__': <function __init__ at 0xb7c846bc>} Destroying Objects (Garbage Collection) Python deletes unneeded objects (built-in types or class instances) automatically to free the memory space. The process by which Python periodically reclaims blocks of memory that no longer are in use is termed Garbage Collection. Python's garbage collector runs during program execution and is triggered when an object's reference count reaches zero. An object's reference count changes as the number of aliases that point to it changes. An object's reference count increases when it is assigned a new name or placed in a container (list, tuple, or dictionary). The object's reference count decreases when it's deleted with del, its reference is reassigned, or its reference goes out of scope. When an object's reference count reaches zero, Python collects it automatically.
a = 40 # Create object <40>
b = a # Increase ref. count of <40> c = [b] # Increase ref. count of <40> del a # Decrease ref. count of <40> b = 100 # Decrease ref. count of <40> c[0] = -1 # Decrease ref. count of <40> You normally will not notice when the garbage collector destroys an orphaned instance and reclaims its space. But a class can implement the special method __del__(), called a destructor, that is invoked when the instance is about to be destroyed. This method might be used to clean up any non-memory resources used by an instance. Example This __del__() destructor prints the class name of an instance that is about to be destroyed:
#!/usr/bin/python
class Point: def __init( self, x=0, y=0): self.x = x self.y = y def __del__(self): class_name = self.__class__.__name__ print class_name, "destroyed" pt1 = Point() pt2 = pt1 pt3 = pt1 print id(pt1), id(pt2), id(pt3) # prints the ids of the obejcts del pt1 del pt2 del pt3 When the above code is executed, it produces following result:
3083401324 3083401324 3083401324
Point destroyed Note: Ideally, you should define your classes in separate file, then you should import them in your main program file using import statement. Class Inheritance Instead of starting from scratch, you can create a class by deriving it from a preexisting class by listing the parent class in parentheses after the new class name. The child class inherits the attributes of its parent class, and you can use those attributes as if they were defined in the child class. A child class can also override data members and methods from the parent. Syntax Derived classes are declared much like their parent class; however, a list of base classes to inherit from is given after the class name:
class SubClassName (ParentClass1[, ParentClass2, ...]):
'Optional class documentation string' class_suite Example
#!/usr/bin/python
class Parent: # define parent class parentAttr = 100 def __init__(self): print "Calling parent constructor" def parentMethod(self): print 'Calling parent method' def setAttr(self, attr): Parent.parentAttr = attr def getAttr(self): print "Parent attribute :", Parent.parentAttr class Child(Parent): # define child class def __init__(self): print "Calling child constructor" def childMethod(self): print 'Calling child method' c = Child() # instance of child c.childMethod() # child calls its method c.parentMethod() # calls parent's method c.setAttr(200) # again call parent's method c.getAttr() # again call parent's method When the above code is executed, it produces the following result:
Calling child constructor
Calling child method Calling parent method Parent attribute : 200 Similar way, you can drive a class from multiple parent classes as follows:
class A: # define your class A
..... class B: # define your calss B ..... class C(A, B): # subclass of A and B ..... You can use issubclass() or isinstance() functions to check a relationships of two classes and instances.
You can always override your parent class methods. One reason for overriding parent's methods is because you may want special or different functionality in your subclass. Example
#!/usr/bin/python
class Parent: # define parent class def myMethod(self): print 'Calling parent method' class Child(Parent): # define child class def myMethod(self): print 'Calling child method' c = Child() # instance of child c.myMethod() # child calls overridden method When the above code is executed, it produces the following result:
Calling child method
Base Overloading Methods Following table lists some generic functionality that you can override in your own classes:
Suppose you have created a Vector class to represent two-dimensional vectors, what happens when you use the plus operator to add them? Most likely Python will yell at you. You could, however, define the __add__ method in your class to perform vector addition and then the plus operator would behave as per expectation: Example
#!/usr/bin/python
class Vector: def __init__(self, a, b): self.a = a self.b = b def __str__(self): return 'Vector (%d, %d)' % (self.a, self.b) def __add__(self,other): return Vector(self.a + other.a, self.b + other.b) v1 = Vector(2,10) v2 = Vector(5,-2) print v1 + v2 When the above code is executed, it produces the following result:
Vector(7,8)
Data Hiding An object's attributes may or may not be visible outside the class definition. You need to name attributes with a double underscore prefix, and those attributes then are not be directly visible to outsiders. Example
#!/usr/bin/python
class JustCounter: __secretCount = 0 def count(self): self.__secretCount += 1 print self.__secretCount counter = JustCounter() counter.count() counter.count() print counter.__secretCount When the above code is executed, it produces the following result:
1
2 Traceback (most recent call last): File "test.py", line 12, in <module> print counter.__secretCount AttributeError: JustCounter instance has no attribute '__secretCount' Python protects those members by internally changing the name to include the class name. You can access such attributes as object._className__attrName. If you would replace your last line as following, then it works for you:
.........................
print counter._JustCounter__secretCount When the above code is executed, it produces the following result:
1
2 2 |