class / instance question

[belinda thom]

On Mar 22, 2007, at 7:10 PM, Ben Finney wrote:

>> abstract base class, where I've used an "abstract()" hack to
>> somewhat enforce this).
>
> You can use the 'NotImplemented' built-in object, or the
> 'NotImplementedError' exception, for this purpose:

Thanks---I'd forgotten about that.

>> I now want to be able to pass either of these classes into a game-
>> playing engine, for instance a function
>>
>> playGame(classOfGameToBePlayed) :
>>     # inside of which I create a new game using that class's  
>> constructor
>>
>> Is this possible, and if so, how to approach it?
>
> It works just as you describe. The class is an object, that can be
> passed as an argument just like any other object. That object is
> callable, and invokes the class constructor to return a new instance
> of the class.
>
>     def play_game(game_class):
>         """ Play a new game """
>         game = game_class()
>         game.start_play()

Aha....I was trying things like:

game_class.__init__(...)

which complained then about self.

Figured there had to be a way. Many thanks---you've saved me some time.

--b