Question

I want to subclass a numeric type (say, int) in python and give it a shiny complex constructor. Something like this:

class NamedInteger(int):
    def __init__(self, value):
        super(NamedInteger, self).__init__(value)
        self.name = 'pony'

    def __str__(self):
        return self.name

x = NamedInteger(5)
print x + 3
print str(x)

This works fine under Python 2.4, but Python 2.6 gives a deprecation warning. What is the best way to subclass a numeric type and to redefine constructors for builtin types in newer Python versions?

Edit:
Spotted in comments that this works without a super() line, so it could be like this:

class NamedInteger(int):
    def __init__(self, value):
        self.name = 'pony'

    def __str__(self):
        return self.name

x = NamedInteger(5)
print x + 3
print str(x)

I believe that this works because int is immutable type and has only __new__ method. However I would be glad to know a correct way of subclassing, so I could build a class with behaviour like this:

x = NamedInteger(5, 'kitty')

Second edit:

The final version now looks like this:

class NamedInteger(int):
    def __new__(cls, value, name='pony'):
        self = super(NamedInteger, cls).__new__(cls, value)
        self.name = name
        return self

    def __str__(self):
        return self.name

x = NamedInteger(5)
y = NamedInteger(3, 'kitty')
print "%d %d" % (x, y)
print "%s %s" % (x, y)

Answers below also gave very interesting links to Abstract Base Classes and numbers modules.

Answer 1

You have to use __new__ instead of __init__ when you subclass immutable built-in types, e.g. :

class NamedInteger(int):

    def __new__(cls, value, name='pony'):
        inst = super(NamedInteger, cls).__new__(cls, value)
        inst.name = name
        return inst

    def __str__(self):
        return self.name

x = NamedInteger(5)
print x + 3                 # => 8   
print str(x)                # => pony
x = NamedInteger(3, "foo")  
print x + 3                 # => 6
print str(x)                # => foo