Question

I read PEP 8: Style Guide for Python code, but I couldn’t find anything on what order I should define inner classes or methods in a class.

For example, should I do

class CustomClass(BaseClass):
    class Meta:
        foo = self.bar

    def foo_bar(self):
        return False

    bar = 1

or

class CustomClass(BaseClass):
    def foo_bar(self):
        return False

    class Meta:
        foo = self.bar

    bar = 1

?

EDIT: Here is a Django source code. They actually define fields, then inner classes, then methods:

class LogEntry(models.Model):
    action_time = models.DateTimeField(_('action time'), auto_now=True)
    user = models.ForeignKey(User)
    content_type = models.ForeignKey(ContentType, blank=True, null=True)
    object_id = models.TextField(_('object id'), blank=True, null=True)
    object_repr = models.CharField(_('object repr'), max_length=200)
    action_flag = models.PositiveSmallIntegerField(_('action flag'))
    change_message = models.TextField(_('change message'), blank=True)

    objects = LogEntryManager()

    class Meta:
        verbose_name = _('log entry')
        verbose_name_plural = _('log entries')
        db_table = 'django_admin_log'
        ordering = ('-action_time',)

    def __repr__(self):
        return smart_unicode(self.action_time)

    def __unicode__(self):
        if self.action_flag == ADDITION:
            return _('Added "%(object)s".') % {'object': self.object_repr}
        elif self.action_flag == CHANGE:
            return _('Changed "%(object)s" - %(changes)s') % {'object': self.object_repr, 'changes': self.change_message}
        elif self.action_flag == DELETION:
            return _('Deleted "%(object)s."') % {'object': self.object_repr}

        return _('LogEntry Object')

    def is_addition(self):
        return self.action_flag == ADDITION

    def is_change(self):
        return self.action_flag == CHANGE

    def is_deletion(self):
        return self.action_flag == DELETION

    def get_edited_object(self):
        "Returns the edited object represented by this log entry"
        return self.content_type.get_object_for_this_type(pk=self.object_id)

    def get_admin_url(self):
        """
        Returns the admin URL to edit the object represented by this log entry.
        This is relative to the Django admin index page.
        """
        if self.content_type and self.object_id:
            return mark_safe(u"%s/%s/%s/" % (self.content_type.app_label, self.content_type.model, quote(self.object_id)))
        return None

Answer 1

The generally accepted practice is to define fields, then inner classes, then methods.