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Python Object-Oriented Python Advanced Objects Subclassing Built-ins

Posted by Andrew McLane
Andrew McLane
3,385 Points

super help

I thought super could only be used when we had a parent class? also, dict seems to be an argument for the class, and i thought the names of parent classes went into the parenthesis of a class.

Ryan Cross
Ryan Cross
5,742 Points
Ryan Cross
Ryan Cross
5,742 Points

I thought super could only be used when we had a parent class?

true! but object is the mother of all classes....everything is descended from object

Kobi Michaeli
Kobi Michaeli
31,461 Points

not exactly , there is something called MRO read this: https://makina-corpus.com/blog/metier/2014/python-tutorial-understanding-python-mro-class-search-path this is how python is looking for super, and by understanding the MRO you will understand super better see the examples and try them yourself, also add prints everywhere

1 Answer

Chris Freeman
MOD
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,441 Points
Chris Freeman
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,441 Points

I thought super could only be used when we had a parent class?

The default parent included in all classes is the object class. It can be seen by examining the class Method Object Resolution attribute

$ python
Python 3.6.3 (default, Oct  3 2017, 21:45:48) 
[GCC 7.2.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> class NoParent:
...     pass
... 
>>> np = NoParent()
>>> np.__class__.__mro__
(<class '__main__.NoParent'>, <class 'object'>)

Also, dict seems to be an argument for the class, and i thought the names of parent classes went into the parenthesis of a class.

In this case, dict is the parent class and not an argument. The built-in types, such as dict could have been capitalized as other class names but the built-in types were left lower cased.