Misunderstanding classes (newbie)

[sorry at spam.invalid]

Thanks for replying.  You've written part (b), which I was also
able to do.  But how do I get (a) the modified UserList and (b)
the list of class elements into a single instance?  I want

   a[whatever_I_decide_is_the_start_of_the_list].lastname 

to return 

   a[0].lastname 

automatically, and have whatever_I_decide_is_the_start
_of_the_list default to 1 when I create an instance of 
the class.

Jerry <2jerry at writeme.com> wrote:
> This is just a list of class elements ? no ?
> class lm:
>    def __init__(self, last=None,first=None,age=0):
>        self.lastname=last
>        self.firstname=first
>        self.age=age

> then ..
> list_lm=[]
> a=lm('jerome','VACHER',29)
> list_lm.append(a)
> list_lm.append(lm('paul','DUBOIS',45))
> a[0].lastname='jerome'

> Is that you want ?


> sorry at spam.invalid wrote:
>>Hi,
>>
>>I'm a Python newbie (and an OOP newbie) trying to
>>construct a class that:
>>
>>  (a) behaves like a list but has a FORTRAN-like variable
>>      starting index,
>>  (b) has per-index attributes.
>>
>>i.e. Each element of the list has two (or more) attributes,
>>     and, by default, the first element is at x[1].
>>
>>e.g. x[1].lastname, x[1].firstname, x[1].age
>>     x[2].lastname, x[2].firstname, x[2].age
>>
>>I seem to be able to get each part of the solution
>>independently (the first part by using UserList and
>>__getitem__), but when I attempt to combine them, I
>>clearly don't understand what I'm doing.
>>
>>Suggestions?
>>
>>Thanx.
>>
>>P.S. Please respond to the list.