Creating a Derived Class

Python, by default, makes everything an object. When you create a class, it is not actually the first of its kind. Rather, it is a derived class that automatically inherits the attributes and methods of Python's canonical object class. This:

class MyClass():

is read by Python as this:

class MyClass(object):

[Note that object is lower-cased. Using caps will return an error.]

Simply inheriting from the built-in object class, however, leaves little room for any additions or adaptations that you would like to make over a broad number of classes. This comes into play especially if you are creating a library of code to be used in various circumstances. To ammend a pre-existing class, you need to create a new one that inherits from it.

class MyClass():
  def MyFunction(self):
    print "This is MyFunction in MyClass."
class MySecondClass(MyClass):
  pass
myobject = MySecondClass()
myobject.MyFunction()

When you run the above code, the output is as follows:

This is MyFunction in MyClass.

In this example, MySecondClass is the derived class, and MyClass is the base class.