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TEC102 Week 11 Workshop

Here is an Animal class with a constructor that initializes name, species, and age instance variables: class Animal: def __init__(self, name, species, age): self.name = name self.species = species self.age = age

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53 views15 pages

TEC102 Week 11 Workshop

Here is an Animal class with a constructor that initializes name, species, and age instance variables: class Animal: def __init__(self, name, species, age): self.name = name self.species = species self.age = age

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TEC102

Fundamentals of
Programming
Lesson 11
Classes
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Do not remove this notice.


Subject Learning Outcomes
1 Interpret simple program
specifications.
2 Conceptualise a high-level model via the
use of pseudocode and flow charts.
3 Describe how to transfer a high-level
model into a software application via the
use of a programming language.
4 Use an integrated development
environment to develop, debug and
test a solution written in a
programming language.
5 Use a programming language to read and
write data to a persistent storage.
Recap: Types
• Recall, from Workshop 1 – Hello World!,
the built-in Python type() function can be
used to return the type of the specified
object: a = [1, 2, 3]
b = ':D'
c = 33
d = 3.0
print(type(a)) # <class 'list'>
print(type(b)) # <class 'str'>
print(type(c)) # <class 'int'>
print(type(d)) # <class 'float'>
Class
• Another type of object that was mentioned, but not discussed is
class
• A Class is like an object constructor (or a way to create an object)
• Use the class keyword to define a Class
– Ensure proper PEP 8 Style Guide: https://peps.python.org/pep-0008/
• In the example, a class was created and named Test
– The pass keyword was used on purpose to not cause an
IndentationError
– The type output was: <class '__main__.Test'>

class Test:
pass

print(type(Test()))
Instantiation
• A class by itself doesn’t achieve anything useful
except being defined in code
• A class must be instantiated – which means we
must create an instance of the class, in order to
use it
• In the example, an empty class named Person
was created. Then, a variable bob instantiated
an empty Person() class constructor:
class Person:
pass

bob = Person()
Object-Oriented Programming
(OOP)
• A class instance is also referred as an object
• The pattern of defining classes and creating
objects to produce functionality
• If the Test class output type was:
<class '__main__.Test’>
– __main__ (two underscores __): refers to the Python
file that is executing the code
– In other words, the above output translate to: the
class Test was defined here, in the Python file that is
executing the code
Class Variables
• When the desired outcome is to have the same
data to be available to every instance of a class,
we use a class variable
• The class variable job is a variable that’s the
same for every instance of the class Person:
– We can access object’s (bob) class variables with the
object.variable syntax (bob.job)
class Person:
job = 'Cook'

bob = Person()
print(bob.job)
# prints Cook
Activity
In the previous slide, can you think of a reason
why creating a Person class for other objects –
which is most likely created to represent real
People – would lead to a bad outcome?

Answer:
Possibly, some of the other object’s created (or,
put simply other people) will not have the same
job as object bob did. Perhaps object ana might
be a Nurse, but the class variable defines
object ana as a Cook…
Methods (in a Class)
• Methods are functions that are defined as part of a class
– These methods belong only to that class
• The first argument in a method is always the object that
is calling the method
– Good practice: use self keyword as the first argument in a
method always
class Person:
job = 'Cook'
years = 15

def work_experience(self):
print('Experience: ' + str(self.years))

bob = Person()
print(bob.work_experience())
# prints Experience: 15
Methods with Arguments
(in a Class)
• Extending the previous slide, methods can take
other arguments and not just self:
• In the example, WeightConvert class was
defined, instantiated it, and used to convert
100kg to pounds:
class WeightConvert:
kg_in_pounds = 2.205

def how_many_pounds(self, kg):


return kg * self.kg_in_pounds

convert = WeightConvert()
print(convert.how_many_pounds(100))
# prints 220.5
Constructors
• There are several methods that can define a
Class to have special behaviour
– These are known as dunder methods (they are in
the form of two underscores on either side)
• An important dunder method in Class, is the
__init__() – which is used to initialise a
newly created object, and it’s called every
time the class is instantiated
• See next slide for example
Constructors (2)
• Revisiting our previous Activity, we can
attempt to fix the Person class, so that
each object can provide their arguments:
class Person:
def __init__(self, name, job):
self.name = name
self.job = job

bob = Person('Bob', 'Cook')


ana = Person('Ana', 'Nurse')

print(ana.name) # prints Ana


print(ana.job) # prints Nurse
Instance Variables
• In the previous slide, the object ana, must provide
two arguments to the Person() class constructor
• When the two arguments “Ana” and “Nurse” are
passed, the Person class is instantiated with the
instance variables self.name and self.job to
represent those passed arguments
• Note: important to know that the object bob, can’t
access object ana instance variables
• To check what instance variables are mapped to
what object, use the __dict__:
print(ana.__dict__)
# {'name': 'Ana', 'job': 'Nurse'}
Activity
Create an Animal class that has a name,
species, and an age

Answer:
class Animal:
def __init__(self, name, species, age):
self.name = name
self.species = species
self.age = age

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