I have 2 classes, A and B
class A:
def name(self):
return B(name=self)
class B:
def __init__(self, name):
self.name = name
def hi(self):
return "Hi!" + self.name
def bye(self):
return "Bye!" + self.name
print(A.name('Robert').hi())
print(A.name('Robert').bye()) # I don't want this :(
This prints out Hi! Robert and Bye! Robert, however, class A has access to bye() (which I do not want). Is there a way to limit the functions of B which A.name can access?
That would contradict Python's typing system.
In statically typed languages, not only does a data object in the memory has a type, but also the variable which references it, and the two types do not have to be identical (though they have to match). The class members accessible through the referencing variable depend usually on the variable's type, not the object's type.
Python is a dynamically typed language. Referencing variables do not have types, they are just labels pointing at the data objects. And since, in your case, A's name method returns an object of type B, this object obviously has access to all of B's class members. It does not know that it was originally created by A, it's just an ordinary B instance.
New to Python. Apologies for the title. Been searching for days on this problem :S
I am coming from a PHP background where I can create classes in their own files and then call those classes from anywhere as long as I have a reference to them.
For instance;
require class Z from class A.
Then have class B extend class A.
then be able to call methods on class Z from class B.
I want to have a parent class that contains methods and members that other classes can extend so that I'm not re-inventing the wheel every time I want create a class that is distinct in its own way, but also has similarities to other classes.
Maybe my understanding of how modules work in Python is wrong? Following is an example of what I'm trying to achieve. Do i need all of these classes in one module? Can someone explain the process for what I'm attempting to do?
import Z
class A():
def __init__(self):
self.varZ = Z()
self.some_value = None
def a_setter_function(self, value):
self.some_value = value
Then extending classes, for example class B through to class X;
import A
class B(A):
def some_function(self):
something = self.varZ.do_something_from_z_class()
def set_value(self, value):
self.a_setter_function(value)
Always raises;
'ClassB' object has no attribute 'varZ'
I have no issues in calling 'a_setter_function()' from class B.
Can also call methods on varZ from class A.
The only solution I can come up with is to have a method in class A (called from class B) which calls the method from class Z. ie The method I'm trying to call from Class B.
Why can't I call a method of class Z from class B via its parent class A?
How to access the calling/outer/container python class within current class when added as a property. Consider this example...
class a():
#staticmethod
def meth():
print 'Who called me?'
class b():
my_a = a
class c():
my_a = a
b.my_a.meth()
>> Who called me?
c.my_a.meth()
>> Who called me?
So the question in this example is how to know within a.meth() whether it is being called from class b or class a?
The above are obviously static classes and methods, would the solution to the above also apply to containing objects?
There's no good way to know how the meth() function was accessed. By the time it is called, it is simply a function. If you use #classmethod instead, you will at least get the class passed to you, but in this case, they are both the same a, so I'm not sure you'll get what you want.
You will likely need to do some more bookkeeping to get the information you want.
I want to be able to create an instance of a parent class X, with a string "Q" as an extra argument.
This string is to be a name being an identifier for a subclass Q of the parent class X.
I want the instance of the parent class to become (or be replaced with) an instance of the subclass.
I am aware that this is probably a classic problem (error?). After some searching I haven't found a suitable solution though.
I came up with the following solution myself;
I added a dictionary of possible identifiers as keys for their baseclass-instances to the init-method of the parent class.
Then assigned the class-attribute of the corresponding subclass to the current instances class-attribute.
I required the argument of the init-method not to be the default value to prevent infinite looping.
Following is an example of what the code looks like in practice;
class SpecialRule:
""""""
name="Special Rule"
description="This is a Special Rule."
def __init__(self, name=None):
""""""
print "SpecialInit"
if name!=None:
SPECIAL_RULES={
"Fly" : FlyRule(),
"Skirmish" : SkirmishRule()
} #dictionary coupling names to SpecialRuleclasses
self.__class__= SPECIAL_RULES[name].__class__
def __str__(self):
""""""
return self.name
class FlyRule(SpecialRule):
""""""
name="Fly"
description="Flies."
def __init__(self):
""""""
print "FlyInit"+self.name
SpecialRule.__init__(self)
def addtocontainer(self, container):
"""this instance messes with the attributes of its containing class when added to some sort of list"""
class SkirmishRule(SpecialRule):
""""""
name="Skirmish"
description="Skirmishes."
def __init__(self):
""""""
SpecialRule.__init__(self)
def addtocontainer(self, container):
"""this instance messes with the attributes of its containing class when added to some sort of list"""
test=SpecialRule("Fly")
print "evaluating resulting class"
print test.description
print test.__class__
</pre></code>
output:
>
SpecialInit
FlyInitFly
SpecialInit
evaluating resulting class
Flies.
main.FlyRule
>
Is there a more pythonic solution and are there foresee-able problems with mine?
(And am I mistaken that its a good programming practice to explicitly call the .__init__(self) of the parent class in .__init__ of the subclass?).
My solution feels a bit ... wrong ...
Quick recap so far;
Thanks for the quick answers
# Mark Tolonen's solution
I've been looking into the __new__-method, but when I try to make A, B and C in Mark Tolonen's example subclasses of Z, I get the error that class Z isn't defined yet. Also I'm not sure if instantiating class A the normal way ( with variable=A() outside of Z's scope ) is possible, unless you already have an instance of a subclass made and call the class as an attribute of an instance of a subclass of Z ... which doesn't seem very straightforward. __new__ is quite interesting so I'll fool around with it a bit more, your example is easier to grasp than what I got from the pythondocs.
# Greg Hewgill's solution
I tried the staticmethod-solution and it seems to work fine. I looked into using a seperate function as a factory before but I guessed it would get hard to manage a large program with a list of loose strands of constructor code in the main block, so I'm very happy to integrate it in the class.
I did experiment a bit seeing if I could turn the create-method into a decorated .__call__() but it got quite messy so I'll leave it at that.
I would solve this by using a function that encapsulates the choice of object:
class SpecialRule:
""""""
name="Special Rule"
description="This is a Special Rule."
#staticmethod
def create(name=None):
""""""
print "SpecialCreate"
if name!=None:
SPECIAL_RULES={
"Fly" : FlyRule,
"Skirmish" : SkirmishRule
} #dictionary coupling names to SpecialRuleclasses
return SPECIAL_RULES[name]()
else:
return SpecialRule()
I have used the #staticmethod decorator to allow you to call the create() method without already having an instance of the object. You would call this like:
SpecialRule.create("Fly")
Look up the __new__ method. It is the correct way to override how a class is created vs. initialized.
Here's a quick hack:
class Z(object):
class A(object):
def name(self):
return "I'm A!"
class B(object):
def name(self):
return "I'm B!"
class C(object):
def name(self):
return "I'm C!"
D = {'A':A,'B':B,'C':C}
def __new__(cls,t):
return cls.D[t]()
What I'm talking about here are nested classes. Essentially, I have two classes that I'm modeling. A DownloadManager class and a DownloadThread class. The obvious OOP concept here is composition. However, composition doesn't necessarily mean nesting, right?
I have code that looks something like this:
class DownloadThread:
def foo(self):
pass
class DownloadManager():
def __init__(self):
dwld_threads = []
def create_new_thread():
dwld_threads.append(DownloadThread())
But now I'm wondering if there's a situation where nesting would be better. Something like:
class DownloadManager():
class DownloadThread:
def foo(self):
pass
def __init__(self):
dwld_threads = []
def create_new_thread():
dwld_threads.append(DownloadManager.DownloadThread())
You might want to do this when the "inner" class is a one-off, which will never be used outside the definition of the outer class. For example to use a metaclass, it's sometimes handy to do
class Foo(object):
class __metaclass__(type):
....
instead of defining a metaclass separately, if you're only using it once.
The only other time I've used nested classes like that, I used the outer class only as a namespace to group a bunch of closely related classes together:
class Group(object):
class cls1(object):
...
class cls2(object):
...
Then from another module, you can import Group and refer to these as Group.cls1, Group.cls2 etc. However one might argue that you can accomplish exactly the same (perhaps in a less confusing way) by using a module.
I don't know Python, but your question seems very general. Ignore me if it's specific to Python.
Class nesting is all about scope. If you think that one class will only make sense in the context of another one, then the former is probably a good candidate to become a nested class.
It is a common pattern make helper classes as private, nested classes.
There is another usage for nested class, when one wants to construct inherited classes whose enhanced functionalities are encapsulated in a specific nested class.
See this example:
class foo:
class bar:
... # functionalities of a specific sub-feature of foo
def __init__(self):
self.a = self.bar()
...
... # other features of foo
class foo2(foo):
class bar(foo.bar):
... # enhanced functionalities for this specific feature
def __init__(self):
foo.__init__(self)
Note that in the constructor of foo, the line self.a = self.bar() will construct a foo.bar when the object being constructed is actually a foo object, and a foo2.bar object when the object being constructed is actually a foo2 object.
If the class bar was defined outside of class foo instead, as well as its inherited version (which would be called bar2 for example), then defining the new class foo2 would be much more painful, because the constuctor of foo2 would need to have its first line replaced by self.a = bar2(), which implies re-writing the whole constructor.
You could be using a class as class generator. Like (in some off the cuff code :)
class gen(object):
class base_1(object): pass
...
class base_n(object): pass
def __init__(self, ...):
...
def mk_cls(self, ..., type):
'''makes a class based on the type passed in, the current state of
the class, and the other inputs to the method'''
I feel like when you need this functionality it will be very clear to you. If you don't need to be doing something similar than it probably isn't a good use case.
There is really no benefit to doing this, except if you are dealing with metaclasses.
the class: suite really isn't what you think it is. It is a weird scope, and it does strange things. It really doesn't even make a class! It is just a way of collecting some variables - the name of the class, the bases, a little dictionary of attributes, and a metaclass.
The name, the dictionary and the bases are all passed to the function that is the metaclass, and then it is assigned to the variable 'name' in the scope where the class: suite was.
What you can gain by messing with metaclasses, and indeed by nesting classes within your stock standard classes, is harder to read code, harder to understand code, and odd errors that are terribly difficult to understand without being intimately familiar with why the 'class' scope is entirely different to any other python scope.
A good use case for this feature is Error/Exception handling, e.g.:
class DownloadManager(object):
class DowndloadException(Exception):
pass
def download(self):
...
Now the one who is reading the code knows all the possible exceptions related to this class.
Either way, defined inside or outside of a class, would work. Here is an employee pay schedule program where the helper class EmpInit is embedded inside the class Employee:
class Employee:
def level(self, j):
return j * 5E3
def __init__(self, name, deg, yrs):
self.name = name
self.deg = deg
self.yrs = yrs
self.empInit = Employee.EmpInit(self.deg, self.level)
self.base = Employee.EmpInit(self.deg, self.level).pay
def pay(self):
if self.deg in self.base:
return self.base[self.deg]() + self.level(self.yrs)
print(f"Degree {self.deg} is not in the database {self.base.keys()}")
return 0
class EmpInit:
def __init__(self, deg, level):
self.level = level
self.j = deg
self.pay = {1: self.t1, 2: self.t2, 3: self.t3}
def t1(self): return self.level(1*self.j)
def t2(self): return self.level(2*self.j)
def t3(self): return self.level(3*self.j)
if __name__ == '__main__':
for loop in range(10):
lst = [item for item in input(f"Enter name, degree and years : ").split(' ')]
e1 = Employee(lst[0], int(lst[1]), int(lst[2]))
print(f'Employee {e1.name} with degree {e1.deg} and years {e1.yrs} is making {e1.pay()} dollars')
print("EmpInit deg {0}\nlevel {1}\npay[deg]: {2}".format(e1.empInit.j, e1.empInit.level, e1.base[e1.empInit.j]))
To define it outside, just un-indent EmpInit and change Employee.EmpInit() to simply EmpInit() as a regular "has-a" composition. However, since Employee is the controller of EmpInit and users don't instantiate or interface with it directly, it makes sense to define it inside as it is not a standalone class. Also note that the instance method level() is designed to be called in both classes here. Hence it can also be conveniently defined as a static method in Employee so that we don't need to pass it into EmpInit, instead just invoke it with Employee.level().