Python Classes & Objects

The last modifications of this post were around 4 years ago, some information may be outdated!

Classes vs Objects vs Instances vs Methods

• Class is a blueprint/template of an object.
  • Each class has its own attributes (its states) and methods (its behaviors).
• Object is a bundle of related attributes and methods.
• Instance is a single and unique unit of a class.
  • Many instances may have the same class. They have attributes and methods defined in the class.

Syntactic sugar & self

Syntactic sugar is syntax within a programming language that is designed to make things easier to read or to express. For example, we use arr[i,j] but behind the scene, it's get_element(arr, vector(i,j)).

class MyClass()
    def method(arg):
        print(arg)

my_object = MyClass()
my_object.method('foo')
# TypeError: method() takes exactly 1 positional argument (2 given)

my_object.method('foo') means MyClass.method(my_object, 'foo'). That's why we need self or a decorator,

class MyClass():
    def method(self, arg):
        print(arg)

# DON'T NEED `self`
class MyClass():
    @staticmethod
    def method(self, arg):
        print(arg)

Get all attributes of a class

# CHECK THERE IS AN ATTRIBUTE
getattr(MyClass, 'report', None)
# if there is a class, it return this class' detail
# if not, return None

def props(cls):
    return [i for i in cls.__dict__.keys() if i[:1] != '_']

# access these attributes
properties = props(MyClass)
for att in properties:
    print(getattr(MyClass, att))

# Get dictionaries of all attributes & their values
MyClass.__dict__

Import local class

Suppose that we have a folders/files structure like below,

# ORIGINAL STRUCTURE
popai/
  processings/
    a.py # contains class ABC
    test/
      b.py
  lib/
    c.py # contains class XYZ

# UPDATED STRUCTURE
popai/
  __init__.py
  processings/
    __init__.py
    a.py # contains class ABC
    test/
      __init__.py
      b.py
  lib/
    c.py # contains class XYZ

We want import both classes ABC and XYZ,

# b.py
from popai.processings.a import ABC

# a.py
from popai.lib.c import XYZ

Just add __init__.py like in the right box above.

Some errors may occur,

ValueError: attempted relative import beyond top-level package

Father and Son

# FATHER
class father_class():
  def __init__(self):
    self.abc = 1

# SON
class son_class(father_class):
  def __init__(self):
    # son_class has attribute `abc`
    super().__init__()
    self.xyz = 2

If you want son takes all parameters of father and use additional parameters,

class Shape:
    def __init__(self, shapename):
        self.shapename = shapename

class ColoredShape(Shape):
    def __init__(self, color, **kwargs):
        super().__init__(**kwargs)
        self.color = color

cs = ColoredShape(color='red', shapename='circle')

Abstract Base Classes (ABC)

from abc import ABC, abstractmethod

# FATHER CLASS
class BaseModel(ABC):
  def __init__(self):
    pass

  # child class must have
  @abstractmethod
  def fit(self, X):
    pass

  # child class must have
  @abstractmethod
  def predit(self, X):
    pass

  # children class don't need to have
  #   but they can call
  def fit_predict(self, X):
    pass

# CHILD CLASS
class LinearModel(BaseModel)
  def __init__(self):
    pass

  # must-have
  def fit(self, X):
    pass

  # must-have
  def predict(self, X):
    pass

  # this call can use .fix_predict()
  #   from its father!