10.13 A Brief Intro to Python 3.7’s New Data Classes

  • Though named tuples allow you to reference their members by name, they’re still just tuples, not classes
  • For some of the benefits of named tuples, plus the capabilities that traditional Python classes provide, you can use Python 3.7’s new data classes from the Python Standard Library’s dataclasses module
  • Help you build classes faster by using more concise notation and by autogenerating “boilerplate” code that’s common in most classes

Data Classes Autogenerate Code

  • Most classes provide an __init__ method to create and initialize an object’s attributes and a __repr__ method to specify an object’s custom string representation
  • Data classes autogenerate the data attributes and the __init__ and __repr__ methods for you
  • Data classes also can be generated dynamically from a list of field names (like the names of columns in a CSV file)
  • Data classes autogenerate method __eq__, which overloads the == operator
  • Any class that has an __eq__ method also implicitly supports !=
  • Data classes do not automatically generate methods for the <, <=, > and >= comparison operators, but they can

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