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Python Object-Oriented Python Instant Objects Method Arguments

Elena Chen
Elena Chen
1,503 Points
Posted by Elena Chen
Elena Chen
1,503 Points

Method argument

What's the purpose of these two? Does that mean every time I specify an argument, I need these attributes?

self.name = name
self.sneaky = sneaky

If I don't specify any argument in the method, I don't need any attributes but use "=" in the instances. Is that correct? I tried below codes:

class Animal:
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):

        for attribute, value in kwargs.items():
            setattr(self, attribute, value)

>>> cat = Animal(name="Meow", age=2, color="grey")                                                                                          
>>> cat.age                                                                                                                                 
2                                                                                                                                           
>>> cat.color                                                                                                                               
'grey'                                                                                                                                      
>>>

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,732 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,732 Points

If you look one line up at the definition of the constructor, you see:

    def __init__(self, name, sneaky=True, **kwargs)

This shows you that when you create an instance, you must provide a "name" argument; but you can leave off a "sneaky" argument and it will be set to "True" by default).

In your second example, the arguments are all "kwargs", which are also optional but remain undefined by default.