Understanding python variable scope within class - python

I am trying to define a variable in a class that then can be accessed/changed from functions within that class.
For example:
class MyFunctions():
def __init__( self):
self.listOfItems = []
def displayList( self):
"""Prints all items in listOfItems)"""
for item in self.listOfItems:
print item
def addToList(self):
"""Updates all mlb scores, and places results in a variable."""
self.listOfItems.append("test")
f = MyFunctions()
f.addToList
f.displayList
This should output all of the items in the list for me, but instead it displays nothing. I am assuming this is occuring because I did not setup the scope of the variables correctly. I want to be able to access and change listOfItems from within all of the functions in MyFuctions.
I have been trying to figure this out for a few hours now, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

f.addToList and f.displayList do not invoke the methods addToList and displayList respectively. They simply evaluate to the method (bound to the object f in this case) themselves. Add parentheses to invoke the methods as in the corrected version of the program:
class MyFunctions():
def __init__( self):
self.listOfItems = []
def displayList( self):
"""Prints all items in listOfItems)"""
for item in self.listOfItems:
print item
def addToList(self):
"""Updates all mlb scores, and places results in a variable."""
self.listOfItems.append("test")
f = MyFunctions()
f.addToList()
f.displayList()
This is in contrast to Ruby which does not require parentheses for method invocation (except to eliminate ambiguity in certain cases).
It is instructive to add the following to the end of your program:
print type(f.addToList)
This will output something like the following:
<type 'instancemethod'>
demonstrating that this is a method reference and not a method invocation.

Related

Python functions with dots

I have defined a of ordered pairs called f and defined a function applyfunction that goes through the ordered pairs looking at the first value to compare and when it does match to print the second value.
f = {(1,2),(2,4),(3,6),(4,8)}
def applyfunction (f,x):
for xy in f:
if xy[0]==x:
print(xy[1])
applyfunction(f,3)
The above works just the way I want it to. In the meantime I have seen that in python there are functions that have a dot notation and I think that would be useful here. So my question, how can I rewrite the applyfunction definition such that I can use the following notation: f.applyfunction(3)?
You can wrap the ordered pairs into a class of your own, which has the method (method == a function inside a class) you mentioned inside of it.
class OrderedPairWrapper():
def __init__(self, op):
self.op = op
def applyfunction (self, x):
for xy in self.op:
if xy[0]==x:
print(xy[1])
f = {(1,2),(2,4),(3,6),(4,8)}
f = OrderedPairWrapper(f)
print(f.applyfunction(3))
# 6
Dots are used to access methods of a class using its object name. If you want to access that using dot operator, create an object called f for a class with a method applyfunction. Then you can accomplish your desired task

Iteratively create subclass and store objects as class attribute

I have a class that does some complex calculation and generates some result MyClass.myresults.
MyClass.myresults is actually a class itself with different attributes (e.g. MyClass.myresults.mydf1, MyClass.myresults.mydf2.
Now, I need to run MyClass iteratively following a list of scenarios(scenarios=[1,2,[2,4], 5].
This happens with a simple loop:
for iter in scenarios:
iter = [iter] if isinstance(iter, int) else iter
myclass = MyClass() #Initialize MyClass
myclass.DoStuff(someInput) #Do stuff and get results
results.StoreScenario(myclass.myresults, iter)
and at the end of each iteration store MyClass.myresults.
I would like to create a separate class (Results) that at each iteration creates a subclass scenario_1, scenario_2, scenario_2_4 and stores within it MyClass.myresults.
class Results:
# no initialization, is an empty container to which I would like to add attributes iteratively
class StoreScenario:
def __init__(self, myresults, iter):
self.'scenario_'.join(str(iter)) = myresults #just a guess, I am assuming this is wrong
Suggestions on different approaches are more than welcome, I am quite new to classes and I am not sure if this is an acceptable approach or if I am doing something awful (clunky, memory inefficient, or else).
There's two problems of using this approach, The first one is, Result class (separate class) only stores modified values of your class MyClass, I mean, they should be the same class.
The second problem is memory efficiency, you create the same object twice for storing actual values and modified values at each iteration.
The suggested approach is using a hashmap or a dictionary in python. Using dictionary you are able to store copies of modified object very efficient and there's no need to create another class.
class MyClass:
def __init__(self):
# some attributes ...
self.scenarios_result = {}
superObject = MyClass()
for iter in scenarios:
iter = [iter] if isinstance(iter, int) else iter
myclass = MyClass() #Initialize MyClass
myclass.DoStuff(someInput) #Do stuff and get results
# results.StoreScenario(myclass.myresults, iter)
superObject.scenarios_result[iter] = myclass
So I solved it using setattr:
class Results:
def __init__(self):
self.scenario_results= type('ScenarioResults', (), {}) # create an empty object
def store_scenario(self, data, scenarios):
scenario_key = 'scenario_' + '_'.join(str(x) for x in scenarios)
setattr(self.simulation_results, scenario_key,
subclass_store_scenario(data))
class subclass_store_scenario:
def __init__(self, data):
self.some_stuff = data.result1.__dict__
self.other_stuff = data.result2.__dict__
This allows me to call things like:
results.scenario_results.scenario_1.some_stuff.something
results.scenario_results.scenario_1.some_stuff.something_else
This is necessary for me as I need to compute other measures, summary or scenario-specific, which I can then iteratively assign using again setattr:
def construct_measures(self, some_data, configuration):
for scenario in self.scenario_results:
#scenario is a reference to the self.scenario_results class.
#we can simply add attributes to it
setattr(scenario , 'some_measure',
self.computeSomething(
some_data.input1, some_data.input2))

Python: How do I fix my code so that the append will add the argument to the list?

I am very new to python and I've been trying to do this code where i use a tkinter button command to run a function, it works but the append() is not executing, meaning it does not append to the list.
The list and the function containing the append is outside the class and is then classed within a class through the use of tkinter button command
I've tried putting the function inside the class, it works but the append is not adding into the list again.
This is the code I've made that is somewhat similar to real one
prices = []
f = True
class firstclass():
def __init__(self):
while f == True:
my_function()
f = False
def my_function():
prices.append(70)
class secondclass():
def __init__(self):
pass
print(sum(prices))
the sample of real code is in this link, please take this into consideration as well
python: Appending a value to a list outside the class, function with append also outside the class, but function is called within a class
I expected that it would print the appended value which is 70, but it still printed 0
A few issues you need to deal with. First assigning f=True outside the class won't change the value inside, so if you instantiated the class it would just throw an UnboundLocalError complaining that f isn't initialized. You can try this yourself by instantiating the class with
fc = firstclass()
Without instantiation, you have no hope of it giving you the value you want. It is printing zero because of the function secondclass, which has a print statement that is not contained within a method, so it prints the value sum(prices) which the class is declared. That value is from the original declared value of prices which is []. At least that is the way you have shown it in your question. I'm not sure whether you meant to indent the print statement, which would mean it is part of secondclass. However, if you didn't indent you would get the same result as you haven't instantiated firstclass.
To correct this, see below. This code will output 70 as you intended.
prices = []
class firstclass():
def __init__(self):
my_function()
def my_function():
prices.append(70)
class secondclass():
def __init__(self):
pass
print('before instantiation', sum(prices))
fc = firstclass()
print('after instantiation', sum(prices))
fc is now an object of type firstclass and the __init__ method has called my_function to append the value 70 to prices.
There are two reasons this is happening.
You never called firstclass to actually initialize the
constructor.
You are trying to assign False to the variable f
which does not belong to the scope of the class. If you still assign
it, it's considered local. And at the moment the interpreter
detects that you assigned it, the while loop does not have any local
reference of f since you did not define it under the constructor.
See this answer for more details.
Here is the completed code:
prices = []
class firstclass():
f = True
def __init__(self):
while self.f:
my_function()
self.f = False
def my_function():
prices.append(70)
class secondclass():
def __init__(self):
pass
firstclass()
print(sum(prices))

Python - Recommended way to dynamically add methods within a class

I have a class where I want to initialize an attribute self.listN and an add_to_listN method for each element of a list, e.g. from attrs = ['list1', 'list2'] I want list1 and list2 to be initialized as empty lists and the methods add_to_list1 and add_to_list2 to be created. Each add_to_listN method should take two parameters, say value and unit, and append a tuple (value, unit) to the corresponding listN.
The class should therefore look like this in the end:
class Foo():
def __init__(self):
self.list1 = []
self.list1 = []
def add_to_list1(value, unit):
self.list1.append((value, unit))
def add_to_list2(value, unit):
self.list2.append((value, unit))
Leaving aside all the checks and the rest of the class, I came up with this:
class Foo():
def __init__(self):
for attr in ['list1', 'list2']:
setattr(self, attr, [])
setattr(self, 'add_to_%s' % attr, self._simple_add(attr))
def _simple_add(self, attr):
def method(value, unit=None):
getattr(self, attr).append((value, unit))
return method
I also checked other solutions such as the ones suggested here and I would like to do it "right", so my questions are:
Are/Should these methods (be) actually classmethods or not?
Is there a cost in creating the methods in __init__, and in this case is there an alternative?
Where is the best place to run the for loop and add these methods? Within the class definition? Out of it?
Is the use of metaclasses recommended in this case?
Update
Although Benjamin Hodgson makes some good points, I'm not asking for a (perhaps better) alternative way to do this but for the best way to use the tools that I mentioned. I'm using a simplified example in order not to focus on the details.
To further clarify my questions: the add_to_listN methods are meant to be additional, not to replace setters/getters (so I still want to be able to do l1 = f.list1 and f.list1 = [] with f = Foo()).
You are making a design error. You could override __getattr__, parse the attribute name, and return a closure which does what you want, but it's strange to dynamically generate methods, and strange code is bad code. There are often situations where you need to do it, but this is not one of them.
Instead of generating n methods which each do the same thing to one of n objects, why not just write one method which is parameterised by n? Something roughly like this:
class Foo:
def __init__(self):
self.lists = [
[],
[]
]
def add(self, row, value):
self.lists[row].append(value)
Then foo.add1(x) becomes simply foo.add(1, x); foo.add2(x) becomes foo.add(2, x), and so on. There's one method, parameterised along the axis of variation, which serves all cases - rather than a litany of ad-hoc generated methods. It's much simpler.
Don't mix up the data in your system with the names of the data in your system.

Why is this simple python class not working?

I'm trying to make a class that will get a list of numbers then print them out when I need. I need to be able to make 2 objects from the class to get two different lists. Here's what I have so far
class getlist:
def newlist(self,*number):
lst=[]
self.number=number
lst.append(number)
def printlist(self):
return lst
Sorry I'm not very clear, I'm a bit new to oop, can you please help me cos I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Thanks.
In Python, when you are writing methods inside an object, you need to prefix all references to variables belonging to that object with self. - like so:
class getlist:
def newlist(self,*number):
self.lst=[]
self.lst += number #I changed this to add all args to the list
def printlist(self):
return self.lst
The code you had before was creating and modifying a local variable called lst, so it would appear to "disappear" between calls.
Also, it is usual to make a constructor, which has the special name __init__ :
class getlist:
#Init constructor
def __init__(self,*number):
self.lst=[]
self.lst += number #I changed this to add all args to the list
def printlist(self):
return self.lst
Finally, use like so
>>> newlist=getlist(1,2,3, [4,5])
>>> newlist.printlist()
[1, 2, 3, [4,5]]
You should use "self.lst" instead of "lst". Without the "self", it's just internal variable to current method.

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