How python recognize class and instance level variables ? are they different ?
For example,
class abc:
i = 10
def __init__(self, i):
self.i = i
a = abc(30)
b = abc(40)
print a.i
print b.i
print abc.i
output
--------
30
40
10
Means, in above example when I access a.i (or b.i) and abc.i are they referring to completely different variables?
First, your sample is wrong for you can not init the instance if there is only a self in the __init__.
>>> class abc:
... i = 10
... j = 11
... def __init__(self, x):
... self.i = x
Then, when you access the attribute on the instance, it will check the instance variables first. Refer the paragraph here. As you guess:
>>> a = abc(30)
>>> a.i
30
>>> a.j
11
Besides, the class variables is an object shared by all the instances, and instance variables are owned by the instance:
>>> class abc:
... i = []
... def __init__(self, x):
... self.i = [x]
... abc.i.append(x)
...
>>> a = abc(30)
>>> b = abc(40)
>>> a.i
[30]
>>> b.i
[40]
>>> abc.i
[30, 40]
in above example when I access a.i (or b.i) and abc.i are they
referring to completely different variables?
Yes.
abc.i is a Class Object reference.
a.i and b.i are each Instance Object references.
They are all separate references.
This is all assuming your init is meant to be:
def __init__(self,i):
Other wise it doesn't work. In the third case, abc.i the class hasn't been initialized so i acts as a static variable for which you set the value at 10 in the class definition. In the first two instances, when you called init you created an instance of abc with a specific i value. When you ask for the i value of each of those instances you get the correct number.
Related
Let's say I have a class in Python:
class Foo(object):
a = 1
b = 2
I'd like to do some extra stuff when I access 'a' but NOT 'b'. So, for example, let's assume that the extra stuff I'd like to do is to increment the value of the attribute:
> f = Foo()
> f.a # Should output 2
> f.a # Should output 3
> f.a # Should output 4
> f.b # Should output 2, since I want the extra behavior just on 'a'
It feels like there is a way through __getattr__ or __getattribute__, but I couldn't figure that out.
The extra thing can be anything, not necessarily related to the attribute (like print 'Hello world').
Thanks.
What you are looking for is a property, which can be used nicely as a decorator:
class Foo(object):
_a = 2
#property
def a(self):
Foo._a += 1
return Foo._a - 1
b = 2
The function is called whenever you try to access foo_instance.a, and the value returned is used as the value for the attribute. You can also define a setter too, which is called with the new value when the attribute is set.
This is presuming you want the odd set-up of class attributes you only ever access from instances. (_a and b here belong to the class - that is, there is only one variable shared by all instances - as in your question). A property, however, is always instance-owned. The most likely case is you actually want:
class Foo(object):
def __init__(self):
self._a = 2
self.b = 2
#property
def a(self):
self._a += 1
return self._a - 1
Where they are instance attributes.
If you really do want the equivalent of #property for a class variable, you have to build the descriptor yourself.
You almost certainly don't want to do this—see Lattyware's answer for how to make normal instance variables, and turn one of them into a #property.
But here's how you could do it:
class IncrementOnGetDescriptor(object):
def __init__(self, initval=None):
self.val = initval
def __get__(self, obj, objtype):
self.val += 1
return self.val - 1
def __set__(self, obj, val):
self.val = val
class Foo(object):
a = IncrementOnGetDescriptor(2)
b = 2
Now you can test it:
>>> f = Foo()
>>> f.a
2
>>> Foo.a
3
>>>> f.a
4
Turning this into a #classproperty decorator is left as an exercise for the reader.
PS, this still isn't exactly like a normal class variable. Setting Foo.a = 10 will replace your magic auto-incrementing value with a normal 10, while setting foo.a = 10 will update the class with an auto-incrementing 10 instead of storing an instance variable in f. (I originally had the __set__ method raise AttributeError, because normally you'd want an auto-incrementing magic variable be read-only, but I decided to show the more complex version just to show all the issues you have to deal with.)
It seems that in Python, to declare a variable in a class, it is static (keeps its value in the next instances). What better way to get around this problem?
class Foo():
number = 0
def set(self):
self.number = 1
>>> foo = Foo()
>>> foo.number
0
>>> foo.set()
>>> foo.number
1
>>> new_foo = Foo()
>>> new_foo.number
1
Variables defined at the class level are indeed "static", but I don't think they work quite the way you think they do. There are 2 levels here which you need to worry about. There are attributes at the class level, and there are attributes at the instance level. Whenever you do self.attribute = ... inside a method, you're setting an attribute at the instance level. Whenever python looks up an attribute, it first looks at the instance level, if it doesn't find the attribute, it looks at the class level.
This can be a little confusing (especially if the attribute is a reference to a mutable object). consider:
class Foo(object):
attr = [] #class level attribute is Mutable
def __init__(self):
# in the next line, self.attr references the class level attribute since
# there is no instance level attribute (yet)
self.attr.append('Hello')
self.attr = []
# Now, we've created an instance level attribute, so further appends will
# append to the instance level attribute, not the class level attribute.
self.attr.append('World')
a = Foo()
print (a.attr) #['World']
print (Foo.attr) #['Hello']
b = Foo()
print (b.attr) #['World']
print (Foo.attr) #['Hello', 'Hello']
As others have mentioned, if you want an attribute to be specific to an instance, just initialize it as an instance attribute in __init__ (using self.attr = ...). __init__ is a special method which is run whenever a class is initialized (with a few exceptions that we won't discuss here).
e.g.
class Foo(object):
def __init__(self):
self.attr = 0
Just leave the declaration out. If you want to provide default values for the variables, initialize them in the __init__ method instead.
class Foo(object):
def __init__(self):
self.number = 0
def set(self):
self.number = 1
>>> foo = Foo()
>>> foo.number
0
>>> foo.set()
>>> foo.number
1
>>> new_foo = Foo()
>>> new_foo.number
0
Edit: replaced last line of the above snippet; it used to read 1 although it was just a typo on my side. Seems like it has caused quite a bit of confusion while I was away.
You maybe want to change the class attribute:
class Foo():
number = 0
def set(self):
Foo.number = 1
instead of overriding it!
Toward the end of a program I'm looking to load a specific variable from all the instances of a class into a dictionary.
For example:
class Foo():
def __init__(self):
self.x = {}
foo1 = Foo()
foo2 = Foo()
...
Let's say the number of instances will vary and I want the x dict from each instance of Foo() loaded into a new dict. How would I do that?
The examples I've seen in SO assume one already has the list of instances.
One way to keep track of instances is with a class variable:
class A(object):
instances = []
def __init__(self, foo):
self.foo = foo
A.instances.append(self)
At the end of the program, you can create your dict like this:
foo_vars = {id(instance): instance.foo for instance in A.instances}
There is only one list:
>>> a = A(1)
>>> b = A(2)
>>> A.instances
[<__main__.A object at 0x1004d44d0>, <__main__.A object at 0x1004d4510>]
>>> id(A.instances)
4299683456
>>> id(a.instances)
4299683456
>>> id(b.instances)
4299683456
#JoelCornett's answer covers the basics perfectly. This is a slightly more complicated version, which might help with a few subtle issues.
If you want to be able to access all the "live" instances of a given class, subclass the following (or include equivalent code in your own base class):
from weakref import WeakSet
class base(object):
def __new__(cls, *args, **kwargs):
instance = object.__new__(cls, *args, **kwargs)
if "instances" not in cls.__dict__:
cls.instances = WeakSet()
cls.instances.add(instance)
return instance
This addresses two possible issues with the simpler implementation that #JoelCornett presented:
Each subclass of base will keep track of its own instances separately. You won't get subclass instances in a parent class's instance list, and one subclass will never stumble over instances of a sibling subclass. This might be undesirable, depending on your use case, but it's probably easier to merge the sets back together than it is to split them apart.
The instances set uses weak references to the class's instances, so if you del or reassign all the other references to an instance elsewhere in your code, the bookkeeping code will not prevent it from being garbage collected. Again, this might not be desirable for some use cases, but it is easy enough to use regular sets (or lists) instead of a weakset if you really want every instance to last forever.
Some handy-dandy test output (with the instances sets always being passed to list only because they don't print out nicely):
>>> b = base()
>>> list(base.instances)
[<__main__.base object at 0x00000000026067F0>]
>>> class foo(base):
... pass
...
>>> f = foo()
>>> list(foo.instances)
[<__main__.foo object at 0x0000000002606898>]
>>> list(base.instances)
[<__main__.base object at 0x00000000026067F0>]
>>> del f
>>> list(foo.instances)
[]
You would probably want to use weak references to your instances. Otherwise the class could likely end up keeping track of instances that were meant to have been deleted. A weakref.WeakSet will automatically remove any dead instances from its set.
One way to keep track of instances is with a class variable:
import weakref
class A(object):
instances = weakref.WeakSet()
def __init__(self, foo):
self.foo = foo
A.instances.add(self)
#classmethod
def get_instances(cls):
return list(A.instances) #Returns list of all current instances
At the end of the program, you can create your dict like this:
foo_vars = {id(instance): instance.foo for instance in A.instances}
There is only one list:
>>> a = A(1)
>>> b = A(2)
>>> A.get_instances()
[<inst.A object at 0x100587290>, <inst.A object at 0x100587250>]
>>> id(A.instances)
4299861712
>>> id(a.instances)
4299861712
>>> id(b.instances)
4299861712
>>> a = A(3) #original a will be dereferenced and replaced with new instance
>>> A.get_instances()
[<inst.A object at 0x100587290>, <inst.A object at 0x1005872d0>]
You can also solve this problem using a metaclass:
When a class is created (__init__ method of metaclass), add a new instance registry
When a new instance of this class is created (__call__ method of metaclass), add it to the instance registry.
The advantage of this approach is that each class has a registry - even if no instance exists. In contrast, when overriding __new__ (as in Blckknght's answer), the registry is added when the first instance is created.
class MetaInstanceRegistry(type):
"""Metaclass providing an instance registry"""
def __init__(cls, name, bases, attrs):
# Create class
super(MetaInstanceRegistry, cls).__init__(name, bases, attrs)
# Initialize fresh instance storage
cls._instances = weakref.WeakSet()
def __call__(cls, *args, **kwargs):
# Create instance (calls __init__ and __new__ methods)
inst = super(MetaInstanceRegistry, cls).__call__(*args, **kwargs)
# Store weak reference to instance. WeakSet will automatically remove
# references to objects that have been garbage collected
cls._instances.add(inst)
return inst
def _get_instances(cls, recursive=False):
"""Get all instances of this class in the registry. If recursive=True
search subclasses recursively"""
instances = list(cls._instances)
if recursive:
for Child in cls.__subclasses__():
instances += Child._get_instances(recursive=recursive)
# Remove duplicates from multiple inheritance.
return list(set(instances))
Usage: Create a registry and subclass it.
class Registry(object):
__metaclass__ = MetaInstanceRegistry
class Base(Registry):
def __init__(self, x):
self.x = x
class A(Base):
pass
class B(Base):
pass
class C(B):
pass
a = A(x=1)
a2 = A(2)
b = B(x=3)
c = C(4)
for cls in [Base, A, B, C]:
print cls.__name__
print cls._get_instances()
print cls._get_instances(recursive=True)
print
del c
print C._get_instances()
If using abstract base classes from the abc module, just subclass abc.ABCMeta to avoid metaclass conflicts:
from abc import ABCMeta, abstractmethod
class ABCMetaInstanceRegistry(MetaInstanceRegistry, ABCMeta):
pass
class ABCRegistry(object):
__metaclass__ = ABCMetaInstanceRegistry
class ABCBase(ABCRegistry):
__metaclass__ = ABCMeta
#abstractmethod
def f(self):
pass
class E(ABCBase):
def __init__(self, x):
self.x = x
def f(self):
return self.x
e = E(x=5)
print E._get_instances()
Another option for quick low-level hacks and debugging is to filter the list of objects returned by gc.get_objects() and generate the dictionary on the fly that way. In CPython that function will return you a (generally huge) list of everything the garbage collector knows about, so it will definitely contain all of the instances of any particular user-defined class.
Note that this is digging a bit into the internals of the interpreter, so it may or may not work (or work well) with the likes of Jython, PyPy, IronPython, etc. I haven't checked. It's also likely to be really slow regardless. Use with caution/YMMV/etc.
However, I imagine that some people running into this question might eventually want to do this sort of thing as a one-off to figure out what's going on with the runtime state of some slice of code that's behaving strangely. This method has the benefit of not affecting the instances or their construction at all, which might be useful if the code in question is coming out of a third-party library or something.
Here's a similar approach to Blckknght's, which works with subclasses as well. Thought this might be of interest, if someone ends up here. One difference, if B is a subclass of A, and b is an instance of B, b will appear in both A.instances and B.instances. As stated by Blckknght, this depends on the use case.
from weakref import WeakSet
class RegisterInstancesMixin:
instances = WeakSet()
def __new__(cls, *args, **kargs):
o = object.__new__(cls, *args, **kargs)
cls._register_instance(o)
return o
#classmethod
def print_instances(cls):
for instance in cls.instances:
print(instance)
#classmethod
def _register_instance(cls, instance):
cls.instances.add(instance)
for b in cls.__bases__:
if issubclass(b, RegisterInstancesMixin):
b._register_instance(instance)
def __init_subclass__(cls):
cls.instances = WeakSet()
class Animal(RegisterInstancesMixin):
pass
class Mammal(Animal):
pass
class Human(Mammal):
pass
class Dog(Mammal):
pass
alice = Human()
bob = Human()
cannelle = Dog()
Animal.print_instances()
Mammal.print_instances()
Human.print_instances()
Animal.print_instances() will print three objects, whereas Human.print_instances() will print two.
Using the answer from #Joel Cornett I've come up with the following, which seems to work. i.e. i'm able to total up object variables.
import os
os.system("clear")
class Foo():
instances = []
def __init__(self):
Foo.instances.append(self)
self.x = 5
class Bar():
def __init__(self):
pass
def testy(self):
self.foo1 = Foo()
self.foo2 = Foo()
self.foo3 = Foo()
foo = Foo()
print Foo.instances
bar = Bar()
bar.testy()
print Foo.instances
x_tot = 0
for inst in Foo.instances:
x_tot += inst.x
print x_tot
output:
[<__main__.Foo instance at 0x108e334d0>]
[<__main__.Foo instance at 0x108e334d0>, <__main__.Foo instance at 0x108e33560>, <__main__.Foo instance at 0x108e335a8>, <__main__.Foo instance at 0x108e335f0>]
5
10
15
20
(For Python)
I have found a way to record the class instances via the "dataclass" decorator while defining a class. Define a class attribute 'instances' (or any other name) as a list of the instances you want to record. Append that list with the 'dict' form of created objects via the dunder method __dict__. Thus, the class attribute 'instances' will record instances in the dict form, which you want.
For example,
from dataclasses import dataclass
#dataclass
class player:
instances=[]
def __init__(self,name,rank):
self.name=name
self.rank=rank
self.instances.append(self.__dict__)
Is there anyway to set the variables of all instances of a class at the same time? I've got a simplified example below:
class Object():
def __init__(self):
self.speed=0
instance0=Object()
instance1=Object()
instance2=Object()
#Object.speed=5 doesn't work of course
I can see it would be possible by adding all new instances to a list and iterating with isinstance(), but that's not desirable.
One, simpler way, as the other answers put it, is to keep your attribute always as a class attribute. If it is set on the class body, and all write access to the attribute is via the class name, not an instance, that would work:
>>> class Object(object):
... speed = 0
...
>>> a = Object()
>>> b = Object()
>>> c = Object()
>>>
>>> Object.speed = 5
>>> print a.speed
5
>>>
However, if you ever set the attribute in a single instance doing it this way, the instance will have its own attribute and it will no longer change along with the other instance's:
>>> a.speed = 10
>>> Object.speed = 20
>>> print b.speed
20
>>> print a.speed
10
>>>
To overcome that, so that whenever the attribute is set in any instance, the class attribute itself is changed, the easier way is to have the object as a property - whose setter sets the class attribute instead:
class Object(object):
_speed = 0
#property
def speed(self):
return self.__class__._speed
#speed.setter
def speed(self, value):
self.__class__._speed = value
Which works:
>>>
>>> a = Object()
>>> b = Object()
>>> a.speed, b.speed
(0, 0)
>>> a.speed = 10
>>> a.speed, b.speed
(10, 10)
If you want to have independent attribute on the instances, but a special "set_all" method that would set the attribute in all instances, the way to go is to use the gc (Garbage Collector) module in standard librayr, to find and loop through all instances of the class, and set their instance attributes:
import gc
class Object(object):
def __init__(self):
self.speed = 0
def set_all_speed(self, value):
for instance in (obj for obj in gc.get_referrers(self.__class__):
if isinstance(obj, self.__class__)):
instance.speed = value
Which results in:
>>> a =Object()
>>> b = Object()
>>> a.speed = 5
>>> b.speed = 10
>>> a.speed, b.speed
(5, 10)
>>> a.set_all_speed(20)
>>> a.speed, b.speed
(20, 20)
What about using a class attribute?
class Object():
speed=0
instance0=Object()
instance1=Object()
instance2=Object()
Object.speed=5
You could use a class attribute:
class Object():
speed = 0
instance0=Object()
instance1=Object()
instance2=Object()
Object.speed=5
# instance0.speed == instance1.speed == instance2.speed == Object.speed == 5
However this would mean that all instances would always have the same speed.
"Is there any way to set the variables of all instances of a class at the same time?"
That's a class attribute!
Some examples on how to access a class attribute:
>>> class Object:
... speed = 5
... #classmethod
... def first(cls):
... return cls.speed
... def second(self):
... return self.speed
...
>>> Object.speed
5
>>> instance = Object()
>>> instance.speed
5
>>> instance.first()
5
>>> instance.second()
5
How do these 2 classes differ?
class A():
x=3
class B():
def __init__(self):
self.x=3
Is there any significant difference?
A.x is a class variable.
B's self.x is an instance variable.
i.e. A's x is shared between instances.
It would be easier to demonstrate the difference with something that can be modified like a list:
#!/usr/bin/env python
class A:
x = []
def add(self):
self.x.append(1)
class B:
def __init__(self):
self.x = []
def add(self):
self.x.append(1)
x = A()
y = A()
x.add()
y.add()
print("A's x:", x.x)
x = B()
y = B()
x.add()
y.add()
print("B's x:", x.x)
Output
A's x: [1, 1]
B's x: [1]
Just as a side note: self is actually just a randomly chosen word, that everyone uses, but you could also use this, foo, or myself or anything else you want, it's just the first parameter of every non static method for a class. This means that the word self is not a language construct but just a name:
>>> class A:
... def __init__(s):
... s.bla = 2
...
>>>
>>> a = A()
>>> a.bla
2
A.x is a class variable, and will be shared across all instances of A, unless specifically overridden within an instance.
B.x is an instance variable, and each instance of B has its own version of it.
I hope the following Python example can clarify:
>>> class Foo():
... i = 3
... def bar(self):
... print 'Foo.i is', Foo.i
... print 'self.i is', self.i
...
>>> f = Foo() # Create an instance of the Foo class
>>> f.bar()
Foo.i is 3
self.i is 3
>>> Foo.i = 5 # Change the global value of Foo.i over all instances
>>> f.bar()
Foo.i is 5
self.i is 5
>>> f.i = 3 # Override this instance's definition of i
>>> f.bar()
Foo.i is 5
self.i is 3
I used to explain it with this example
# By TMOTTM
class Machine:
# Class Variable counts how many machines have been created.
# The value is the same for all objects of this class.
counter = 0
def __init__(self):
# Notice: no 'self'.
Machine.counter += 1
# Instance variable.
# Different for every object of the class.
self.id = Machine.counter
if __name__ == '__main__':
machine1 = Machine()
machine2 = Machine()
machine3 = Machine()
#The value is different for all objects.
print 'machine1.id', machine1.id
print 'machine2.id', machine2.id
print 'machine3.id', machine3.id
#The value is the same for all objects.
print 'machine1.counter', machine1.counter
print 'machine2.counter', machine2.counter
print 'machine3.counter', machine3.counter
The output then will by
machine1.id 1
machine2.id 2
machine3.id 3
machine1.counter 3
machine2.counter 3
machine3.counter 3
I've just started learning Python and this confused me as well for some time. Trying to figure out how it all works in general I came up with this very simple piece of code:
# Create a class with a variable inside and an instance of that class
class One:
color = 'green'
obj2 = One()
# Here we create a global variable(outside a class suite).
color = 'blue'
# Create a second class and a local variable inside this class.
class Two:
color = "red"
# Define 3 methods. The only difference between them is the "color" part.
def out(self):
print(self.color + '!')
def out2(self):
print(color + '!')
def out3(self):
print(obj2.color + '!')
# Create an object of the class One
obj = Two()
When we call out() we get:
>>> obj.out()
red!
When we call out2():
>>> obj.out2()
blue!
When we call out3():
>>> obj.out3()
green!
So, in the first method self specifies that Python should use the variable(attribute), that "belongs" to the class object we created, not a global one(outside the class). So it uses color = "red". In the method Python implicitly substitutes self for the name of an object we created(obj). self.color means "I am getting color="red" from the obj"
In the second method there is no self to specify the object where the color should be taken from, so it gets the global one color = 'blue'.
In the third method instead of self we used obj2 - a name of another object to get color from. It gets color = 'green'.