Simple Python class questions

[John Dann]

A Python newbie, but some basic understanding of how classes, objects
etc work in eg VB.Net. However, I'm struggling a little to translate
this knowledge into the Python context.

I'm trying to teach myself this aspect of Python by working up a trial
project, part of which calls for pulling in data from a serial data
connection at regular intervals. It looked sensible to place all the
comms procedures/functions in their own class and module and make
calls to those functions from an object instantiated in a main
controlling module. But I'm struggling to get this working - not sure
whether it's a fundamental misunderstanding of the use of classes in
Python, syntax errors pure and simple or, most likely, a combination
of both!

Maybe I could provide some outline code as an illustration:

Let's say I define the class in a module called comms.py. The class
isn't really going to inherit from any other class (except presumably
in the most primitive base-class sense, which is presumably automatic
and implicit in using the class keyword). Let's call the class
serial_link. So in comms.py I have:

class serial_link:
	def __init__(self):
		Try
			Import serial # the pyserial library
		Except ImportException
			#Error handling

	def openPort(self):
		Try
			#Code to try opening serial port
			Return "Success"
		Except SerialException
			Return "Failure"

Then in my separate main calling module I might have:

Import comms
serlink=comms.seral_link     #Create instance of serial_link class
print serlink.openPort


The last line I'm hoping would print Success or Failure. But I just
seem to get some internal reference to the openPort function enclosed
in <>.

So why doesn't it work please? I may be making multiple errors here
but as far as I can see the syntax seems right. For this particular
example, I don't need to pass any arguments from the
'seriallink.openPort' function so haven't included any parentheses (or
are they mandatory even if empty?) I could go on with the explanations
etc, but it may be simplest to see if anyone can spot a howler
straight out.

TIA for anyone willing to help