Python __init__ and self what do they do?

Question

I'm learning the Python programming language and I've came across something I don't fully understand.

In a method like:

def method(self, blah):
    def __init__(?):
        ....
    ....

What does self do? What is it meant to be? Is it mandatory?

What does the __init__ method do? Why is it necessary? (etc.)

I think they might be OOP constructs, but I don't know very much.

Answer 1

What does self do? What is it meant to be? Is it mandatory?

The first argument of every class method, including init, is always a reference to the current instance of the class. By convention, this argument is always named self.In the init method, self refers to the newly created object; in other class methods, it refers to the instance whose method was called.

Python doesn't force you on using "self". You can give it any name you want. But remember that the first argument in a method definition is a reference to the object.Python adds the self argument to the list for you; you do not need to include it when you call the methods. if you didn't provide self in init method then you will get an error

TypeError: __init___() takes no arguments (1 given)

What does the init method do? Why is it necessary? (etc.)

init short for initialization. It is a constructor which get called when you make instance of the class and it is not necessary. But usually it our practice to write init method for setting default state of the object. If you are not willing to set any state of the object initially then you don't need to write this method.

Answer 2

In short:

1. self as it suggests, refers to itself- the object which has called the method. That is, if you have N objects calling the method, then self.a will refer to a separate instance of the variable for each of the N objects. Imagine N copies of the variable a for each object
2. __init__ is what is called as a constructor in other OOP languages such as C++/Java. The basic idea is that it is a special method which is automatically called when an object of that Class is created

Answer 3

In this code:

class A(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.x = 'Hello'

    def method_a(self, foo):
        print self.x + ' ' + foo

... the self variable represents the instance of the object itself. Most object-oriented languages pass this as a hidden parameter to the methods defined on an object; Python does not. You have to declare it explicitly. When you create an instance of the A class and call its methods, it will be passed automatically, as in ...

a = A()               # We do not pass any argument to the __init__ method
a.method_a('Sailor!') # We only pass a single argument

The __init__ method is roughly what represents a constructor in Python. When you call A() Python creates an object for you, and passes it as the first parameter to the __init__ method. Any additional parameters (e.g., A(24, 'Hello')) will also get passed as arguments--in this case causing an exception to be raised, since the constructor isn't expecting them.

Answer 4

Python __init__ and self what do they do?

What does self do? What is it meant to be? Is it mandatory?

What does the __init__ method do? Why is it necessary? (etc.)

The example given is not correct, so let me create a correct example based on it:

class SomeObject(object):

    def __init__(self, blah):
        self.blah = blah

    def method(self):
        return self.blah 

When we create an instance of the object, the __init__ is called to customize the object after it has been created. That is, when we call SomeObject with 'blah' below (which could be anything), it gets passed to the __init__ function as the argument, blah:

an_object = SomeObject('blah')

The self argument is the instance of SomeObject that will be assigned to an_object.

Later, we might want to call a method on this object:

an_object.method()

Doing the dotted lookup, that is, an_object.method, binds the instance to an instance of the function, and the method (as called above) is now a "bound" method - which means we do not need to explicitly pass the instance to the method call.

The method call gets the instance because it was bound on the dotted lookup, and when called, then executes whatever code it was programmed to perform.

The implicitly passed self argument is called self by convention. We could use any other legal Python name, but you will likely get tarred and feathered by other Python programmers if you change it to something else.

__init__ is a special method, documented in the Python datamodel documentation. It is called immediately after the instance is created (usually via __new__ - although __new__ is not required unless you are subclassing an immutable datatype).

Answer 5

The 'self' is a reference to the class instance

class foo:
    def bar(self):
            print "hi"

Now we can create an instance of foo and call the method on it, the self parameter is added by Python in this case:

f = foo()
f.bar()

But it can be passed in as well if the method call isn't in the context of an instance of the class, the code below does the same thing

f = foo()
foo.bar(f)

Interestingly the variable name 'self' is just a convention. The below definition will work exactly the same.. Having said that it is very strong convention which should be followed always, but it does say something about flexible nature of the language

class foo:
    def bar(s):
            print "hi"

Answer 6

Here, the guy has written pretty well and simple: https://www.jeffknupp.com/blog/2014/06/18/improve-your-python-python-classes-and-object-oriented-programming/

Read above link as a reference to this:

self? So what's with that self parameter to all of the Customer methods? What is it? Why, it's the instance, of course! Put another way, a method like withdraw defines the instructions for withdrawing money from some abstract customer's account. Calling jeff.withdraw(100.0) puts those instructions to use on the jeff instance.

So when we say def withdraw(self, amount):, we're saying, "here's how you withdraw money from a Customer object (which we'll call self) and a dollar figure (which we'll call amount). self is the instance of the Customer that withdraw is being called on. That's not me making analogies, either. jeff.withdraw(100.0) is just shorthand for Customer.withdraw(jeff, 100.0), which is perfectly valid (if not often seen) code.

init self may make sense for other methods, but what about init? When we call init, we're in the process of creating an object, so how can there already be a self? Python allows us to extend the self pattern to when objects are constructed as well, even though it doesn't exactly fit. Just imagine that jeff = Customer('Jeff Knupp', 1000.0) is the same as calling jeff = Customer(jeff, 'Jeff Knupp', 1000.0); the jeff that's passed in is also made the result.

This is why when we call init, we initialize objects by saying things like self.name = name. Remember, since self is the instance, this is equivalent to saying jeff.name = name, which is the same as jeff.name = 'Jeff Knupp. Similarly, self.balance = balance is the same as jeff.balance = 1000.0. After these two lines, we consider the Customer object "initialized" and ready for use.

Be careful what you __init__

After init has finished, the caller can rightly assume that the object is ready to use. That is, after jeff = Customer('Jeff Knupp', 1000.0), we can start making deposit and withdraw calls on jeff; jeff is a fully-initialized object.