[Tutor] class.__repr__: 'str' object is not callable???

[pan@uchicago.edu]

Thx to Anton, Don and Danny for soving my puzzle. Now I learned 
a little bit more about py class.

Ok for Danny's 2 review questions:

###
>>> class BuggyClass:
..     def __init__(self):
..         self.name = 'pan'
..     def name(self):
..         return "My name is " + self.name
..
> >>> b = BuggyClass()
> >>>
> >>> b.name()                 ## Review Question: why doesn't this work? [A]
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
> TypeError: 'str' object is not callable
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> BuggyClass.name(b)       ## Advanced question: why does this work? [B]
> 'My name is pan'
> ###

My current understanding is: 

in [B] the class hasn't been 'initialized' yet, so there's 
no '.name' attribute. The only thing in the namespace with 
name = 'name' is the function .name() which returns 
'My name is pan'.

In [A] the class has been instanciated into 'b', meaning that 
the attribute 'name' exists and having a string value 'pan', 
which is returned when b.name is called. It's equivalent to
'pan'() so it results in a 

'str' object is not callable

error. 

Question: where is the .name() method after the class
is instanciated ? Simply overridden by the .name attribute
and can no longer be accessed ?


pan