class

Simple class with __init__ and __str__ methods:

class client(object):
    def __init__(self, name, address, age):
        self.name = name
        self.address = address
        self.age = age

    def __str__(self):
        return self.name + ', ' + self.address + ', ' + str(self.age)

Note: A new-style class is one that is derived, either directly or indirectly, from a built-in type. The base class for all new-style classes is called object.

Name

New style classes:

type(self).__name__

For old (and new) style classes:

self.__class__.__name__

Method Resolution Order

From Python’s super() considered super!:

pprint(MyClassName.__mro__)

Note

See super below.

Properties

Properties

Static and Class Methods

I am not sure I understand why we need classmethod and staticmethod (for more information see this article by Michael Fotsch).

Class Method

A class method is similar to a static method in that it has no self argument. Instead, it receives a class as its first argument. By convention, this argument is called cls. A class method is defined using the classmethod descriptor:

class MyClass(object):
    def SomeMethod(cls, x):
        print cls, x
    SomeMethod = classmethod(SomeMethod)

class DerivedClass(MyClass):
    pass

>>> MyClass.SomeMethod(15)
__main__.MyClass 15
>>> obj = MyClass()
>>> obj.SomeMethod(15)
__main__.MyClass 15
>>> DerivedClass.SomeMethod(150)
__main__.DerivedClass 15

In the last call, you can see that only the class involved in making the method call defines the value of the cls argument. This is despite the fact that the method has been defined in a different class.

Static Method

class MyClass(object):
    def SomeMethod(x):
        print x
    SomeMethod = staticmethod(SomeMethod)

>>> MyClass.SomeMethod(15)
15
>>> obj = MyClass()
>>> obj.SomeMethod(15)
15

Note: You should really consider creating a static method whenever a method does not make substantial use of the instance (self).

super

For python 3:

def get_data(self, name):
    data = super().get_data(name)
    # do something with the data
    return data