Classes and Objects

Python
Programming
Dr. Emmanuel S. Pilli
Associate Professor, CSE
Programming Paradigms
 Python supports three types of Programming Paradigms

 Structured Programming
 Functional Programming
 Object Oriented Programming
Classes and Objects
 Object is a specific instance of a Class
 Class describes two things
 Form an object created from it will take
 Functionality it will have
 Form is often termed as properties (attributes) and
Functionality is termed as methods
 Class bundles data (properties) and functionality together
Classes and Objects
 Properties will have values (data members) and methods
(member functions) can access or manipulate the values
 Class is generic in nature and Object is specific in nature
 Multiple Objects can be created from a single class
 Every type is a class – int, float, complex, bool, str, list,
tuple, set, dict are all classes
Classes and Objects
 Class has a name but Objects are nameless. The names by
which objects are referred are addresses of memory
where the object is stored.
 Specific data in an object is called instance data /
properties / attributes / state of the object
 Methods of an object are called instance methods or
member functions
User defined Classes
 Python permits users to create their own classes and
then create objects from them
 The class statement creates a new class definition.
 The name of the class immediately follows the keyword
class followed by a colon
class ClassName:
 The nameless objects are created by the statement
objectName = ClassName( )
 The address of the object is stored in objectName
Accessing Attributes
 Object contains instance data and instance methods
 Objects method can be called using
objectName.method()
 Whenever we call an instance method using an object,
address of the object gets passed to the method
implicitly, and get is collected in a variable called self
 Using the address of the object present in self the
object’s instance data is selected. Any other variable
name can also be used in place of self
Object Initialization
 There are two ways
 Using methods or member functions (assign as in
example shown in Notebook). Data remains protected
from manipulation from outside the class
 Using special method __init( )__ (constructor
method). This guarantees initialization as __init( )__
is always called when an object is created.
__init__( )
 Whenever an object is created, space so allocated for it in
memory and __init__( ) is called and addresses is passed
to __init__( )
 __init__( ) does not return any value
 If __init__( ) is not defined, Python inserts a default
method in our class
 __init__( ) is only called once in the entire lifetime of an
object
 A class may have a __init__( ) and a member function to
modify an initialized object
__del__ ( )
 __del__( ) method gets called automatically when an
object goes out of scope
 __del__( ) method should be used in clean up
activity
 __del__( ) method is similar to destructor functions
Class Variables and Methods
 If a variable is to be shared among all objects of a class, a class
variable or class attribute is declared.
 A class variable is declared without using self
 Class variables are not part of the objects of a class
 Class variables are accessed using
ClassName.variableName
 Class methods do not receive a self argument
 Class methods are accessed using
ClassName.methodName( )
 Class variables are used to count how many objects are created