FAQ: Object-Oriented Programming - super()

This community-built FAQ covers the “super()” exercise from the lesson “Object-Oriented Programming”.

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This exercise can be found in the following Codecademy content:

Learn Intermediate Python 3

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Hello!

On the animal and cat inherit example the cat class use super() to use the functionality of animal class.

super().__init__(name, "Meow!")

Why not self is used as the first argument of this init method? I think this should not modify the expected behavior.

super().__init__(self, name, "Meow!")

Thanks in advance.

1 Like

I have essentially the same question.

The proof is in the pudding:

class Foo:
    def __init__(self, a, b):
        self.a = a
        self.b = b

class Bar(Foo):
    def __init__(self, a, b, c):
        super().__init__(a, b)
        self.c = c
>>> baz = Bar(2, 5, 8)
>>> baz.a
2
>>> baz.b
5
>>> baz.c
8
>>> 

As we see, self is implicit in the super call to the parent class.

>>> isinstance(baz, Foo)
True
>>> isinstance(baz, Bar)
True
>>>