This is inspired by a question I just saw, "Change what is returned by calling class instance", but was quickly answered with __repr__ (and accepted, so the questioner did not actually intend to call the instance).
Now calling an instance of a class can be done like this:
instance_of_object = object()
instance_of_object()
but we'll get an error, something like TypeError: 'object' object is not callable.
This behavior is defined in the CPython source here.
So to ensure we have this question on Stackoverflow:
How do you actually call an instance of a class in Python?
3 Answers
You call an instance of a class as in the following:
o = object() # create our instance
o() # call the instance
But this will typically give us an error.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: 'object' object is not callable
How can we call the instance as intended, and perhaps get something useful out of it?
We have to implement Python special method, __call__!
class Knight(object):
def __call__(self, foo, bar, baz=None):
print(foo)
print(bar)
print(bar)
print(bar)
print(baz)
Instantiate the class:
a_knight = Knight()
Now we can call the class instance:
a_knight('ni!', 'ichi', 'pitang-zoom-boing!')
which prints:
ni!
ichi
ichi
ichi
pitang-zoom-boing!
And we have now actually, and successfully, called an instance of the class!
The short answer is that the object class has no __call__ method (you can check that with "dir(object)"). When you create an instance of a class the __init__ method is called and when you call the instance, the __call__ method is called.
Up Votes for Everyone! Thanks for posting the question and thanks for answering.
I thought I would just share my implementation in case that helps others ...
I have a class (called RTS) and it contains an SQL Query that I access using a 'get'. The class works fine as an independent endpoint. Now I want to call that class from within the program.
Using the answer above I added the following:
class RTS(Resource):
def __call__(self):
print("In RTS")
def get(self, user_id):
try: ...
In order to call the class from elsewhere in the program I added:
getGR = RTS.get(self, user_unique_id)
Voila - I got the same info I could check on Postman returned within the program.
