- The instantiation or calling-a-class-object operation creates an empty object. Many classes like to create objects with instances with a specific initial state. Therefore a class may define a special method named __init__(), as follows −
- def __init__(self) −
- self.data = [ ]
- When a class defines an __init__() method, class instantiation automatically invokes the newly-created class instance which is obtained by −
- x = MyClass()
- The __init__() method may have arguments. In such a case, arguments given to the class instantiation operator are passed on to __init__(). For example,
>>> class Complex:
... def __init__(self, realpart, imagpart):
... self.r = realpart
... self.i = imagpart
...
>>> x = Complex(4.0, -6.5)
>>> x.r, x.i
(4.0, -6.5)
