Class and Object Variables

Class and Object Variables
	Chapter 11. Object-Oriented Programming

We have already discussed the functionality part of classes and objects, now we'll see the data part of it. Actually, they are nothing but ordinary variables which are bound to the classes and objects namespaces i.e. the names are valid within the context of these classes and objects only.

There are two types of fields - class variables and object variables which are classified depending on whether the class or the object owns the variables respectively.

Class variables are shared in the sense that they are accessed by all objects (instances) of that class. There is only copy of the class variable and when any one object makes a change to a class variable, the change is reflected in all the other instances as well.

Object variables are owned by each individual object/instance of the class. In this case, each object has its own copy of the field i.e. they are not shared and are not related in any way to the field by the samen name in a different instance of the same class. An example will make this easy to understand.

Using Class and Object Variables

Example 11.4. Using Class and Object Variables

				
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: objvar.py

class Person:
	'''Represents a person.'''
	population = 0

	def __init__(self, name):
		'''Initializes the person's data.'''
		self.name = name
		print '(Initializing %s)' % self.name

		# When this person is created, he/she
		# adds to the population
		Person.population += 1
	
	def __del__(self):
		'''I am dying.'''
		print '%s says bye.' % self.name

		Person.population -= 1

		if Person.population == 0:
			print 'I am the last one.'
		else:
			print 'There are still %d people left.' % Person.population
	
	def sayHi(self):
		'''Greeting by the person.
		
		Really, that's all it does.'''
		print 'Hi, my name is %s.' % self.name
	
	def howMany(self):
		'''Prints the current population.'''
		if Person.population == 1:
			print 'I am the only person here.'
		else:
			print 'We have %d persons here.' % Person.population

swaroop = Person('Swaroop')
swaroop.sayHi()
swaroop.howMany()

kalam = Person('Abdul Kalam')
kalam.sayHi()
kalam.howMany()

swaroop.sayHi()
swaroop.howMany()

Output

				
$ python objvar.py
(Initializing Swaroop)
Hi, my name is Swaroop.
I am the only person here.
(Initializing Abdul Kalam)
Hi, my name is Abdul Kalam.
We have 2 persons here.
Hi, my name is Swaroop.
We have 2 persons here.
Abdul Kalam says bye.
There are still 1 people left.
Swaroop says bye.
I am the last one.

How It Works

This is a long example but helps demonstrate the nature of class and object variables. Here, population belongs to the Person class and hence is a class variable. The name variable belongs to the object (it is assigned using self) and hence is an object variable.

Thus, we refer to the population class variable as Person.population and not as self.population. Note that an object variable with the same name as a class variable will hide the class variable! We refer to the object variable name using self.name notation in the methods of that object. Remember this simple difference between class and object variables.

Observe that the __init__ method is used to initialize the Person instance with a name. In this method, we increase the population count by 1 since we have one more person being added. Also observe that the values of self.name is specific to each object which indicates the nature of object variables.

Remember, that you must refer to the variables and methods of the same object using the self variable only. This is called an attribute reference.

In this program, we also see the use of docstrings for classes as well as methods. We can access the class docstring at runtime using Person.__doc__ and the method docstring as Person.sayHi.__doc__

Just like the __init__ method, there is another special method __del__ which is called when an object is going to die i.e. it is no longer being used and is being returned to the system for reusing that piece of memory. In this method, we simply decrease the Person.population count by 1.

The __del__ method is run when the object is no longer in use and there is no guarantee when that method will be run. If you want to explicitly do this, you just have to use the del statement which we have used in previous examples.

Note for C++/Java/C# Programmers

All class members (including the data members) are public and all the methods are virtual in Python.

One exception: If you use data members with names using the double underscore prefix such as __privatevar, Python uses name-mangling to effectively make it a private variable.

Thus, the convention followed is that any variable that is to be used only within the class or object should begin with an underscore and all other names are public and can be used by other classes/objects. Remember that this is only a convention and is not enforced by Python (except for the double underscore prefix).

Also, note that the __del__ method is analogous to the concept of a destructor.


The __init__ method		Inheritance