Python | super() in single inheritance

Prerequisites: Inheritance, function overriding At a fairly abstract level, super() provides the access to those methods of the super-class (parent class) which have been overridden in a sub-class (child class) that inherits from it. Consider the code example given below, here we have a class named Square and an another class named Cube which inherits the class Square. 

Note: Since Cube class does not have an __init__() method, the __init__() of Square class will be used for initialization of Cube instances (basic property of inheritance). Considering this example, we know that each face of a cube is a square and hence, face_area of Cube represents area of a Square. Now, it makes sense to evaluate face_area using area() method of the class Square rather than calculating it manually, not only this will save us from rewriting the code but also it will allow to change the area() logic from one place. But as we have overridden the area() method in Cube, we cannot call area() method of Square using self.area(). Now, this is a situation where super() comes in rescue. super() returns a proxy object of the parent class and then you call the method of your choice on that proxy object, thus, we can call the area() method of Square class using super() as, super().area(). Here follows a modified definition of the class Cube. 

Note that we could have called the area() of Square method as Square.area() rather than super().area() but the latter maker is easier to swap out the super-class or rename it when required, making the code much easier to maintain.   Passing arguments in super() – In the previous section, we discussed how to use super() without any parameters, but that only provides us access to the methods of that super-class which is the immediate parent of the sub-class. To access the methods of that super-class which is not an immediate parent of the sub-class, we use super() with two arguments. Let’s consider an example of three classes named Square, SquarePrism and Cube to understand how to use super() with arguments. Now, a cube is just a special type of square prism whose height is equal to the side of it’s base, and hence a Cube resembles a SquarePrism much more than it resembles a Square. Therefore, in this example the class Cube will inherit the class SquarePrism, and the class SquarePrism will inherit the class Square. For class Square we’ll use the same definition we used in the previous section. Given below is the definition of our newly defined class, SquarePrism. 

A SquarePrism instance has two attributes, the side of it’s square base and the height of the square prism. The instance method face_area() returns a tuple of two numbers representing the base area of the square prism and the lateral area of the square prism. Since the base is a square, for base area of the square prism, we call the method Square.area() as super().area(). The area() method returns the total surface area of the square prism. Until now, we have used super() without any parameters, now follows the definition of the new class Cube which will demonstrate the use of super() with parameters. 

Unlike the methods __init__() and area(), the face_area() method of Cube is somewhat different from its counter-part SquarePrism.face_area(). For a cube the lateral area is equal to the base area and hence, it is not meaningful for the face_area() method to return a tuple, therefore, the face_area() of the class Cube will return the area of one of the cube faces. Now, since each face of the cube is a square, it is again meaningful to use the area() method of the class Square. Now, since the class Square is not an immediate parent of the class Cube, we cannot access the area() method of the class Square as super().area() as it will call the method SquarePrism.area() instead. Here we use super(SquarePrism, self).area() to call the area() method of the class Square. In the first argument, SquarePrism signifies that super() searches for the area() method in the immediate parent of the class SquarePrism, that is in the class Square. The use of self as the second parameter provides the context of the current Cube object to super() for the requested area() method to act upon. Remember that, to use super() in two argument form, it is necessary that the object passed as the second argument is an instance of the type passed as first argument. Note: Since the class Cube is a child of the class SquarePrism, a Cube instance is also an instance of the class SquarePrism and the class Square. Try the following code snippet and observe the output for the clarification of the above point. 

It is worthwhile to note that the zero argument form of super() can only be used inside a class definition as it is auto-filled by the compiler with the appropriate parameters, i.e. if we use super() inside a class, say X, super() will be converted into super(X, self) by the compiler. While the zero-argument form of super() is popular among developers the two argument form might not seem to be of much use for now. But in multiple inheritance, the two argument form plays a very important role.