Class Updating Parent information in a Child Class

Question

Hello All,

I'm messing about with Classes in Python and was wanting to know how do I update information which has been initialized in Parent class in a Child Class.

I'm basically trying to create a standard Space Marine template (Parent Class) with generic stats. Then creating Chapters (Child Class) which are will update these generic stats.

class Space_Marine():

  def __init__(self, name, WS = 30, BS = 30, S = 30, T = 30, AG = 30, INT = 30,
               PER = 30, WP = 30, FEL = 30):
    self.name = name
    self.WS = WS
    self.BS = BS
    self.S = S
    self.T = T
    self.AG = AG
    self.INT = INT
    self.PER = PER
    self.WP = WP
    self.FEL = FEL

class Space_Wolf(Space_Marine):

  def __init__(self,name): # This __init__ is clearly not the right solution.
    #Update self.WS = self.WS + 5
    #Update self.FEL = self.FEL + 5


Player1 = Space_Marine("John")
Player2 = Space_Wolf("Wolfy")
print(Player1.name)
print(Player2.name + " WS is " + str(Player2.WS))

I have commented in the Space_Wolf class what I would like to do. It appears that when I put init in the child class and run it. It will create only the object with those attributes, which obviously defeats the purpose of inheritance.

Hopefully you all understood this rambling, if not please do say, I'll try to make things clearer if necessary. Also big thanks in advanced :D

"For Russ! For the Wolftime!"

Answer 1 · 2015-04-10T23:07:09Z

April 10, 2015 11:07pm

The first step is to call the parent __init__() from the child __init__(). This can be done with super():

Space_Wolf.__init__() would look something like this:

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(Space_Wolf, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        # local customization of values here
        self.WS += 5
        self.FEL += 5

"*args" handles name and "**kwargs" handles the rest

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John Reilly

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Class Updating Parent information in a Child Class

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Chris Freeman

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