Initializing the object

• Lets look at Point class which we have written so far

class Point:
    def reset(self):
        self.x = 0
        self.y = 0

• If we don’t explicitly set x and y positions on Our point object, we have a broken point with not real positions, So better idea would be enforcing user to pass the values of x and y while instantiating object from class
• So in many object oriented languages we have a concept of constructor which is a special method that creates and initializes the object
• In Python we have a constructor & a initializer. We rarely use constructor and often use initializer
• In python whenever you come across methods with __method_name__, these methods are known as magic methods or dunder (double underscore)
• Python initialization method is also a magic method and it has a name __init__
• Lets use initialization in the Point code

class Point:
    def __init__(self, x, y):
        self.x = x
        self.y = y
    
    def reset(self):
        self.x = 0
        self.y = 0
    
    def print(self):
        print(self.x, self.y)

# To instantiate an object
p = Point(4,5)
p.print()
p.reset()
p.print()

• Even if the user doesn’t pass x,y values i want to set some default values

class Point:
    def __init__(self, x=0, y=0):
        self.x = x
        self.y = y
    
    def reset(self):
        self.x = 0
        self.y = 0
    
    def print(self):
        print(self.x, self.y)

# To instantiate an object
p = Point(4,5)
p.print()
p.reset()
p.print()

# Lets instantiate a new object with default arguments
print("printing default arguments based object")
new_point = Point()
new_point.print()

• In initialization after the object is created init will be called to initialize the values
• Constructor in the case of the python is __new__

Explaining Classes

• Python supports writing documentation of your classes & methods using docstrings
• Lets look at our program

class Point:
    "Represents a point in two dimensional space"

    def __init__(self, x=0, y=0):
        """ Initialize the position of a new point. 
        x and y coordinates can be specified. 
        If they are not specified, point defaults to origin
        """
        self.x = x
        self.y = y
    
    def reset(self):
        """
        Resets the point back to origin: 0,0
        """
        self.x = 0
        self.y = 0
    
    def print(self):
        """
        Prints the co-ordinates
        """
        print(self.x, self.y)

• Now importing this code in the Python interactive shell and we can view the help of the class
• There are document generators in Python which can create a html documentation of your classes when you write doc strings.
• Refer Here for official docstring documentation
• Now lets debug our class in visual studio code. While debugging the classes we will use Step into which will help in moving into functions/operations/behaviors while debugging
• Exercise: Create a class called as Number which will have operations such as
  • is_even
  • is_prime
  • is_palindrome

class Number:
    """ 
    This represents a number which has some operations 
    for mathematical convenience
    """

    def __init__(self, number=0):
        """
        Initializes number with value passed otherwise
        initializes to zero
        """
        pass

    def is_even(self):
        """
        This operation returns true if the number is even,
        false other wise
        """
        pass

    def is_prime(self):
        """
        This operation returns true if the number is prime,
        false other wise
        """
        pass

    def is_palindrome(self):
        """
        This operation returns true if the number is palindrome,
        false other wise
        """
        pass