CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonclassobjectint
user13469230
user13469230

Reputation:

Do the 'int' objects in Python only contain values?

Let's take the following Python code:

a = 3
print(a)

As far as I know, a is a reference to an object of class int — correct me if I am wrong. Diagrammatically, it should look something like this, as far as I know.

    The object of 'int' class
       containing value 3

        |---|
a ----> | 3 |
        |---|

Does the 'int' object in memory only contain the value 3 or it contains some space for other variables as well?

Our professor told us that it looks something like below:

   The object of class 'int'
        |--------|
        |   ___  |
a ----> |   |3|  |
        |   ---  |
        |--------|

So, is the remaining space utilized by some other variables?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 389

Answers (2)

jfaccioni
jfaccioni

Reputation: 7509

Any object in Python inherits from the object class, which means that it's treated as any Python object, not as a primitive value as you'd expect from a language like C. This is what people mean when they say that in Python, everything is an object.

For example, the int class has a method __str__ that dictates what its string representation looks like:

>>> a = 3
>>> a.__str__()
'3'

You can use dir(a) to get a list of every method associated with a.

So to answer your question, yes - the int object does not only allocates the space needed for the primitive value itself, but also for the whole Python object associated with it.

Upvotes: 1

autosnake
autosnake

Reputation: 23

I am not sure what you are asking but you can use type() to check what class an object or variable is:

type(a)

OUTPUT:

<class 'int'>

Upvotes: 0

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