Instance attribute attribute_name defined outside __init__

python constructor pylint
Steven Liao picture Steven Liao · Oct 10, 2013 · Viewed 86.7k times · Source

I split up my class constructor by letting it call multiple functions, like this:

class Wizard:
    def __init__(self, argv):
        self.parse_arguments(argv)
        self.wave_wand() # declaration omitted

    def parse_arguments(self, argv):
        if self.has_correct_argument_count(argv):
            self.name = argv[0]
            self.magic_ability = argv[1]
        else:
            raise InvalidArgumentsException() # declaration omitted

# ... irrelevant functions omitted

While my interpreter happily runs my code, Pylint has a complaint:

Instance attribute attribute_name defined outside __init__

A cursory Google search is currently fruitless. Keeping all constructor logic in __init__ seems unorganized, and turning off the Pylint warning also seems hack-ish.

What is a/the Pythonic way to resolve this problem?

Answer

sthenault picture sthenault · Oct 10, 2013

The idea behind this message is for the sake of readability. We expect to find all the attributes an instance may have by reading its __init__ method.

You may still want to split initialization into other methods though. In such case, you can simply assign attributes to None (with a bit of documentation) in the __init__ then call the sub-initialization methods.

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