Python 3 - Second Edition

19.11    Magic Methods and Magic Attributes

There are several special methods and attributes in Python to provide classes with special capabilities. The names of these methods and attributes each begin and end with two underscores. In the course of the last sections, you already got to know one of these magic methods or magic attributes—namely, the constructor named __init__.

The handling of these methods and attributes is "magical" in that they are usually not used directly by name but are used implicitly in the background when needed. For example, the __init__ constructor is called whenever a new object of a class is created, even if there is no explicit call—such as with classname.__init__() in the appropriate place.

Many magic methods allow ...