Question

Given a class and other classes that extend it either directly or indirectly. Is there a way to get all the classes that directly extend the original class.

class Alpha(object):
    @classmethod
    def get_derivatives(cls):
        return [Beta, ] # when called from Alpha
        return [] # when called from Beta

class Beta(Alpha):
    pass

I’m guessing there are some complications or it is impossible altogether. There would have to be some specification as to where the derived classes are defined, which would make things tricky…

Is my best bet to hard-code the derived classes into the base one?

Answer 1

Perhaps you are looking for the __subclasses__ method:

class Alpha(object):
    @classmethod
    def get_derivatives(cls):
        return cls.__subclasses__() 

class Beta(Alpha):
    pass

print(Alpha.get_derivatives())
print(Beta.get_derivatives())

yields

[<class '__main__.Beta'>]
[]