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Python Object-Oriented Python Instant Objects Your first method

Posted by Phu Tran
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Phu Tran
Python Web Development Techdegree Student 4,687 Points

Why it needs to be self.name instead of name(self) or name.self?

Hi,

Here is my code:

class Student: name = "Your Name"

def praise(self):
    return "You inspire me, {}".format(self.name)

but I don't understand why we have to call self.name? I thought self is often after the "."

Do you have any resources or documents to clarify this concept? I am a non-native-speaker so I am really sorry if my question is unclear.

first_class.py 
class Student:
    name = "Your Name"

2 Answers

Stuart McIntosh
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Stuart McIntosh
Python Web Development Techdegree Graduate 22,874 Points
Stuart McIntosh
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Stuart McIntosh
Python Web Development Techdegree Graduate 22,874 Points

Hi there - not a reference, however, hopefully, this is might shed some light...

>>> class Student:
...     name = 'Stuart'
... 
>>> s1 = Student()
>>> s1.name 
'Stuart'

As can be seen above we create a class called Student then instantiate a new instance s1 to access the name attribute we call s1.name Self relates to the object instance calling the praise method. If we took the example above the object would s1 so self would represent s1. If I am not making alot of sense check this URL out https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-construct-classes-and-define-objects-in-python-3

Phu Tran
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Phu Tran
Python Web Development Techdegree Student 4,687 Points

Thank you, I think I understand it right now :) does it is like we let the function praise inherit the attribute name from class Student, right?

Chester Stephen
Chester Stephen
413 Points
Chester Stephen
Chester Stephen
413 Points

Just a random question and totally unrelated. How do you add screenshots like what you guys did on the above posts?

I have a lot of questions and wanted to post my work to make more sense in my question but unable to do so.

Thanks in advance!

Stuart McIntosh
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Stuart McIntosh
Python Web Development Techdegree Graduate 22,874 Points

Hi there Phu, the method praise has self as a argument. Self is the object instance - so in the example you are passing in the s1 object. Does that make sense?

Phu Tran
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Phu Tran
Python Web Development Techdegree Student 4,687 Points

Yes, after few practices I understand how it works now. Thank you!!!

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