Learn Python by Building Data Science Applications

Data classes

Let's now discuss a new feature that was added in Python 3.7—data classes. First of all, data classes are just syntactic sugar (simpler syntax). The end result is just an ordinary instance of a class, and it can be achieved with normal classes, just in a few more lines. As the name implies, data classes are a simple way to write data-focused classes.

What do we mean by data-focused? Basically, data classes have the __repr__ and __init__ methods defined out of the box. By specifying additional parameters, such as eq, order, and frozen, we can make a data class generate additional boilerplate methods—such as equality (eq), smaller/greater (order), and add immutability (frozen). One caveat is that the default initiation function ...