using an instance of Object as an empty class

[AlienBaby]

Hi,

I'm just wondering why something is so, and whats going on under the
hood.

Now and again I use something like

class empty(object):
 pass


simply so I can make an instance, and set some attributes on it.

a=empty()
a.whatever=something


Poking around with this, I assumed I could instead say

a=object()
a.whatever=something

but I get an attribute error. 'object object has no attribute
whatever'

I tried setattr() but get the same result.


So, it seems to me there is something special about instances of
object, and making an empty class  that inherits from object, or
creating an instance of that class, is doing some 'magic' somewhere
that enables setting attributes etc..

Whats actually going on here, and why?

Matt.