[Tutor] Class instantiation parameters

[Jan Eden]

Hi,

after using Perl for some years for simple scripting tasks, one of my programs reached a size where an OO design is appropriate. So I rewrote the program using OO techniques in Perl. Because I am not entirely satisfied with the implementation, I decided port the program to Python.

The first thing I'd like to sort out are the parameters on class invocation. In Perl, I did (... for lines left out):

my $page = Show->new(type => $type, id => $id);

package Show;
...
sub new {
    my $class = shift;
    my $self = { @_ };
    ...
    bless $self, $class;
    return $self;
}

making use of the relatively liquid border between hashes (dictionaries) and arrays (lists).

In Python, I would do:

page = Show(type=type, id=id)

class Show:
    def __init__(self, type, id):
        self.id = id
        self.type = type
        ...
        return self

For two parameters, this is relatively simple. But if I have for example 10 parameters on instantiation, assigning each value the the class object manually will be really clumsy.

So how can I add the values of all the paramaters to my class instance in one step?

Thanks in advance,

Jan
-- 
Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining. - Jeff Raskin