A question about Python Classes

[MRAB]

On 21/04/2011 18:12, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> chad<cdalten at gmail.com>  writes:
>
>> Let's say I have the following....
>>
>> class BaseHandler:
>>      def foo(self):
>>          print "Hello"
>>
>> class HomeHandler(BaseHandler):
>>      pass
>>
>>
>> Then I do the following...
>>
>> test = HomeHandler()
>> test.foo()
>>
>> How can HomeHandler call foo() when I never created an instance of
>> BaseHandler?
>
> But you created one!
>
No, he didn't, he created an instance of HomeHandler.

> test is an instance of HomeHandler, which is a subclass of BaseHandler,
> so test is also an instance of BaseHandler.
>
test isn't really an instance of BaseHandler, it's an instance of
HomeHandler, which is a subclass of BaseHandler.

If you do this:

     class BaseHandler(object):
         def foo(self):
             print "Hello"

     class HomeHandler(BaseHandler):
         pass

     test = HomeHandler()

then you'll find:

 >>> isinstance(test, BaseHandler)
True

but:

 >>> type(test)
<class '__main__.HomeHandler'>