can a subclass method determine if called by superclass?
Jean-Michel Pichavant
jeanmichel at sequans.com
Thu Jan 5 06:09:41 EST 2012
Peter wrote:
> Situation: I am subclassing a class which has methods that call other
> class methods (and without reading the code of the superclass I am
> discovering these by trial and error as I build the subclass - this is
> probably why I may have approached the problem from the wrong
> viewpoint :-)).
>
> Problem: when overriding one of these "indirectly called" superclass
> methods I would like to take differing actions (in the subclass
> instance) depending on whether it is the superclass or the subclass
> instance performing the call.
>
> Question: Is there any way to determine in a method whether it is
> being called by the superclass or by a method of the subclass
> instance?
>
> Now I suspect that what I am doing is actually very muddy thinking :-)
> and I don't want to attempt to explain why I am approaching the design
> this way as an explanation would require too much work - I will
> consider an alternative inheritance approach while waiting an answer,
> but the answer to the question interested me (even if I do a redesign
> and come up with a more "elegant" approach to the problem).
>
> Thanks
> Peter
>
As you suspected, this is probably the wrong approach.
However since you asked for a solution anyway :o)
class Parent(object):
def foo(self):
# implementation by subclasses is still REQUIRED
if self.__class__ is Parent:
raise NotImplementedError()
# common code for all foo methods
print "calling foo"
class Child(Parent):
def foo(self):
# You can still call the virtual method which contains some code
Parent.foo(self)
# here the custom code
p = Parent()
c = Child()
c.foo()
p.foo()
Note that this is not the best approach, still acceptable because there
is no code specific to a subclass in the base class.
JM
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