Python: deleting a class attribute in a subclass

Question

I have a subclass and I want it to not include a class attribute that's present on the base class.

I tried this, but it doesn't work:

>>> class A(object):
...     x = 5
>>> class B(A):
...     del x
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#1>", line 1, in <module>
    class B(A):
  File "<pyshell#1>", line 2, in B
    del x
NameError: name 'x' is not defined

How can I do this?

Answer 1

I'm had the same problem as well, and I thought I had a valid reason to delete the class attribute in the subclass: my superclass (call it A) had a read-only property that provided the value of the attribute, but in my subclass (call it B), the attribute was a read/write instance variable. I found that Python was calling the property function even though I thought the instance variable should have been overriding it. I could have made a separate getter function to be used to access the underlying property, but that seemed like an unnecessary and inelegant cluttering of the interface namespace (as if that really matters).

As it turns out, the answer was to create a new abstract superclass (call it S) with the original common attributes of A, and have A and B derive from S. Since Python has duck typing, it does not really matter that B does not extend A, I can still use them in the same places, since they implicitly implement the same interface.