On May 17, 3:55 pm, Alex Hall <mehg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So what is a subclass compared to a class? Are you saying that what is
> passed to the class, so what is in the parentheses of the class, is
> really the superclass? If so, what is the advantage of doing this; why
> not just create a class that is not a sub? I thinking I am missing
> something elementary here. :)
A subclass can inherit methods and attributes from a base class. This
is not necessary, but is sometimes useful.
> In Java, a class is an object. Is Python the same thing?
Yes, a class is an object. A class's class is its "metaclass".
An instance of a class is also an object.
> Would you say
> that my dog class, for example, creates a new dog object when an
> instance is instantiated?
Yes. But the actual act of coding something like:
class foo(object):
pass
Creates a class object, which is a subclass of the 'object' object,
and is an instance of the 'type' object. Since Python is so dynamic,
you can easily determine this at the command prompt:
>>> class foo(object):
... pass
...
>>> x = foo()
>>>
>>> type(x)
<class '__main__.foo'>
>>> type(foo)
<type 'type'>
>>>
Regards,
Pat
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