The class statement creates a new class definition. The name of the class immediately follows the keyword class followed by a colon as follows −
class ClassName: 'Optional class documentation string' class_suite
- The class has a documentation string, which can be accessed via ClassName.__doc__.
- The class_suite consists of all the component statements defining class members, data attributes and functions.
Example
Following is the example of a simple Python class −
class Employee: 'Common base class for all employees' empCount = 0 def __init__(self, name, salary): self.name = name self.salary = salary Employee.empCount += 1 def displayCount(self): print "Total Employee %d" % Employee.empCount def displayEmployee(self): print "Name : ", self.name, ", Salary: ", self.salary
- The variable empCount is a class variable whose value is shared among all instances of a this class. This can be accessed as Employee.empCount from inside the class or outside the class.
- The first method __init__ is a special method, which is called class constructor or initialization method that Python calls when you create a new instance of this class.
- You declare other class methods like normal functions with the exception that the first argument to each method is self. Python adds the self argument to the list for you; you do not need to include it when you call the methods.