Practical Programming, 2nd Edition

Calling Methods the Object-Oriented Way

Because every method in class str requires a string as the first argument (and, more generally, because every method in any class requires an object of that class as the first argument), Python provides a shorthand form for calling a method where the object appears first and then the method call:

>>> 'browning'.capitalize()
'Browning'
>>> 'Sonnet 43'.center(26)
'        Sonnet 43         '
>>> 'How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.'.count('the')
2

When Python encounters one of these method calls, it translates it to the more long-winded form. We will use this shorthand form throughout the rest of the book.

The help documentation for methods uses this form. Here is the help for ...