What is the difference between attributes and properties in python?

Python Server Side Programming Programming

In python, everything is an object. And every object has attributes and methods or functions. Attributes are described by data variables for example like name, age, height etc.

Properties are special kind of attributes which have getter, setter and delete methods like __get__, __set__ and __delete__ methods.

However, there is a property decorator in Python which provides getter/setter access to an attribute Properties are a special kind of attributes. Basically, when Python encounters the following code:

foo = SomeObject()
print(foo.bar)

it looks up bar in foo, and then examines bar to see if it has a __get__, __set__, or __delete__ method and if it does, it's a property. If it is a property, instead of just returning the bar object, it will call the __get__ method and return whatever that method returns.

In Python, you can define getters, setters, and delete methods with the property function. If you just want the read property, there is also a @property decorator you can add above your method.

class C(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self._x = None
#C._x is an attribute
@property
    def x(self):
        """I'm the 'x' property."""
        return self._x
# C._x is a property   This is the getter method
@x.setter # This is the setter method
    def x(self, value):
        self._x = value
@x.deleter # This is the delete method
    def x(self):
        del self._x

Rajendra Dharmkar

Published on 07-Dec-2017 12:41:10

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