What is a mixin, and why are they useful?

Question

In "Programming Python", Mark Lutz mentions "mixins". I'm from a C/C++/C# background and I have not heard the term before. What is a mixin?

Reading between the lines of this example (which I've linked to because it's quite long), I'm presuming it's a case of using multiple inheritance to extend a class as opposed to 'proper' subclassing. Is this right?

Why would I want to do that rather than put the new functionality into a subclass? For that matter, why would a mixin/multiple inheritance approach be better than using composition?

What separates a mixin from multiple inheritance? Is it just a matter of semantics?

Answer 1

mixin gives a way to add functionality in a class, i.e you can interact with methods defined in a module by including the module inside the desired class. Though ruby doesn't supports multiple inheritance but provides mixin as an alternative to achieve that.

here is an example that explains how multiple inheritance is achieved using mixin.

module A    # you create a module
    def a1  # lets have a method 'a1' in it
    end
    def a2  # Another method 'a2'
    end
end

module B    # let's say we have another module
    def b1  # A method 'b1'
    end
    def b2  #another method b2
    end
end

class Sample    # we create a class 'Sample'
    include A   # including module 'A' in the class 'Sample' (mixin)
    include B   # including module B as well

    def S1      #class 'Sample' contains a method 's1'
    end
end

samp = Sample.new    # creating an instance object 'samp'

# we can access methods from module A and B in our class(power of mixin)

samp.a1     # accessing method 'a1' from module A
samp.a2     # accessing method 'a2' from module A
samp.b1     # accessing method 'b1' from module B
samp.b2     # accessing method 'a2' from module B
samp.s1     # accessing method 's1' inside the class Sample

Answer 2

What separates a mixin from multiple inheritance? Is it just a matter of semantics?

A mixin is a limited form of multiple inheritance. In some languages the mechanism for adding a mixin to a class is slightly different (in terms of syntax) from that of inheritance.

In the context of Python especially, a mixin is a parent class that provides functionality to subclasses but is not intended to be instantiated itself.

What might cause you to say, "that's just multiple inheritance, not really a mixin" is if the class that might be confused for a mixin can actually be instantiated and used - so indeed it is a semantic, and very real, difference.

Example of Multiple Inheritance

This example, from the documentation, is an OrderedCounter:

class OrderedCounter(Counter, OrderedDict):
     'Counter that remembers the order elements are first encountered'

     def __repr__(self):
         return '%s(%r)' % (self.__class__.__name__, OrderedDict(self))

     def __reduce__(self):
         return self.__class__, (OrderedDict(self),)

It subclasses both the Counter and the OrderedDict from the collections module.

Both Counter and OrderedDict are intended to be instantiated and used on their own. However, by subclassing them both, we can have a counter that is ordered and reuses the code in each object.

This is a powerful way to reuse code, but it can also be problematic. If it turns out there's a bug in one of the objects, fixing it without care could create a bug in the subclass.

Example of a Mixin

Mixins are usually promoted as the way to get code reuse without potential coupling issues that cooperative multiple inheritance, like the OrderedCounter, could have. When you use mixins, you use functionality that isn't as tightly coupled to the data.

Unlike the example above, a mixin is not intended to be used on its own. It provides new or different functionality.

For example, the standard library has a couple of mixins in the socketserver library.

Forking and threading versions of each type of server can be created using these mix-in classes. For instance, ThreadingUDPServer is created as follows:

class ThreadingUDPServer(ThreadingMixIn, UDPServer):
    pass

The mix-in class comes first, since it overrides a method defined in UDPServer. Setting the various attributes also changes the behavior of the underlying server mechanism.

In this case, the mixin methods override the methods in the UDPServer object definition to allow for concurrency.

The overridden method appears to be process_request and it also provides another method, process_request_thread. Here it is from the source code:

class ThreadingMixIn:
        """Mix-in class to handle each request in a new thread."""

        # Decides how threads will act upon termination of the
        # main process
        daemon_threads = False

        def process_request_thread(self, request, client_address):
            """Same as in BaseServer but as a thread.
            In addition, exception handling is done here.
            """
            try:
                self.finish_request(request, client_address)
            except Exception:
                self.handle_error(request, client_address)
            finally:
                self.shutdown_request(request)

        def process_request(self, request, client_address):
            """Start a new thread to process the request."""
            t = threading.Thread(target = self.process_request_thread,
                                 args = (request, client_address))
            t.daemon = self.daemon_threads
            t.start()

A Contrived Example

This is a mixin that is mostly for demonstration purposes - most objects will evolve beyond the usefulness of this repr:

class SimpleInitReprMixin(object):
    """mixin, don't instantiate - useful for classes instantiable
    by keyword arguments to their __init__ method.
    """
    __slots__ = () # allow subclasses to use __slots__ to prevent __dict__
    def __repr__(self):
        kwarg_strings = []
        d = getattr(self, '__dict__', None)
        if d is not None:
            for k, v in d.items():
                kwarg_strings.append('{k}={v}'.format(k=k, v=repr(v)))
        slots = getattr(self, '__slots__', None)
        if slots is not None:
            for k in slots:
                v = getattr(self, k, None)
                kwarg_strings.append('{k}={v}'.format(k=k, v=repr(v)))
        return '{name}({kwargs})'.format(
          name=type(self).__name__,
          kwargs=', '.join(kwarg_strings)
          )

and usage would be:

class Foo(SimpleInitReprMixin): # add other mixins and/or extend another class here
    __slots__ = 'foo',
    def __init__(self, foo=None):
        self.foo = foo
        super(Foo, self).__init__()

And usage:

>>> f1 = Foo('bar')
>>> f2 = Foo()
>>> f1
Foo(foo='bar')
>>> f2
Foo(foo=None)

Answer 3

I think of them as a disciplined way of using multiple inheritance - because ultimately a mixin is just another python class that (might) follow the conventions about classes that are called mixins.

My understanding of the conventions that govern something you would call a Mixin are that a Mixin:

• adds methods but not instance variables (class constants are OK)
• only inherits from object (in Python)

That way it limits the potential complexity of multiple inheritance, and makes it reasonably easy to track the flow of your program by limiting where you have to look (compared to full multiple inheritance). They are similar to ruby modules.

If I want to add instance variables (with more flexibility than allowed for by single inheritance) then I tend to go for composition.

Having said that, I have seen classes called XYZMixin that do have instance variables.