Initializing subclasses of tuple

[Steve Holden]

Dave Opstad wrote:
> I'm hoping someone can point out where I'm going wrong here. Here's a 
> snippet of a Python interactive session (2.3, if it makes a difference):
> 
> --------------------------------------
> 
>>>>class X(list):
> 
> ...   def __init__(self, n):
> ...     v = range(n)
> ...     list.__init__(self, v)
> ... 
> 
>>>>x = X(10)
>>>>x
> 
> [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
> 
>>>>class Y(tuple):
> 
> ...   def __init__(self, n):
> ...     v = tuple(range(n))
> ...     tuple.__init__(self, v)
> ... 
> 
>>>>y = Y(10)
> 
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
> TypeError: iteration over non-sequence
> --------------------------------------
> 
> How do I initialize instances of a class derived from tuple, if it's not 
> in the __init__ method?
> 
In the __new__ method! This must return the actual created object, 
whereas __init__ initializes the already-created object.

This applies to subclassing all the built-in types.

regards
  Steve
-- 
Meet the Python developers and your c.l.py favorites March 23-25
Come to PyCon DC 2005                      http://www.pycon.org/
Steve Holden                           http://www.holdenweb.com/