Data Classes

The dataclass module was introduced in Python 3.7 as a utility tool to make structured classes specially for storing data. These classes hold certain properties and functions to deal specifically with the data and its representation.

from dataclasses import dataclass

@dataclass
class InventoryItem:
    """Class for keeping track of an item in inventory."""
    name: str
    unit_price: float
    quantity_on_hand: int = 0

    def total_cost(self) -> float:
        return self.unit_price * self.quantity_on_hand

will add, among other things, a init() that looks like:

def __init__(self, name: str, unit_price: float, quantity_on_hand: int = 0):
    self.name = name
    self.unit_price = unit_price
    self.quantity_on_hand = quantity_on_hand

Note that this method is automatically added to the class: it is not directly specified in the class definition shown above.

Data Classes

References