Question

I am new to Python and while unit testing some methods on my object I noticed something ‘weird’.

class Ape(object):
    def __init__(self):
        print 'ooook'

    def say(self, s):
        print s

def main():
    Ape().say('eeek')

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

I wrote this little example to illustrate where I got confused. If you do Ape().say(‘eeek’) does this actually instantiate an Ape object and run the init method? I thought it wouldn’t but I had some weird side effects so now I am thinking it does?

Answer 1

Yes it does. That’s what Ape() does: it creates an new Ape object, and as part of that process the __init__ method gets run.

In your example, you then call the say method of that object. Note that there would be no way to call say if you didn’t have an Ape object.