[Edu-sig] Python @ Education: What are your problems?

[Danny Yoo]

> 	- no super() method call to call to super-class (AFAIK)

In Python versions previous to 2.2, this could be done with the __bases__
attribute:

###
>>> class Parent:
...     def sayHello(self):
...         print "hello"
...
>>> class Child(Parent):
...     def sayHello(self):
...         print "My mom says:",
self.__class__.__bases__[0].sayHello(self)
...
>>> p, c = Parent(), Child()
>>> p.sayHello()
hello
>>> c.sayHello()
My mom says: hello
###

but as you can tell, this is really awkward!  Multiple inheritance,
combined with the dynamic features of Python (__getattr__/__setattr__),
can complicate things.



Python 2.2 has a new "super()"  function that simplifies this a lot.
With super(), the example above looks like:

###
class Parent(object):
    def sayHello(self): print "Hello!"

class Child(Parent):
    def sayHello(self):
        print "My mom says", super(Child, self).sayHello()
###


See:

    http://www.python.org/doc/current/whatsnew/sect-rellinks.html

for details on this new function.



Hope this helps!