A simple explanation of super() in Python

(For more, visit pythontutorial... !) In this video, I explain the super() function for object-oriented programming (OOP) in Python. There is a lot of myth-building about what this function does, but it's surprisingly simple! In a nutshell, super() make complex multiple inheritance easier, but in most scenarios is identical to explicitly calling base-class functions.

[@adriandiaz1072]

Oh mannn I was stuck on this for hours just reading articles etc... this is the best video I’ve come across so far!. ASAP Sebbie coming through clutch

[@Elia__Holm]

Just the same))

[@JMH-kw8it]

You are by far one of the best Python teachers on KZbin. I love the way you broke this down, as well as the delivery. Thanks for doing what you do!

[@Factory400]

It takes a true expert to break this down to bite sized pieces. AWESOME.

[@yashpandey9550]

Brilliant explaination. Great job 👍.

[@elevenyhz]

Extremely clear and friendly to python beginners. Thank you Sebastiaan.

[@kedarr_]

this video deserves more views. the explanation is amazing

[@kondordv]

not everybody what to work and those few of them not in programming...:)

[@eerik6571]

After spending like 40 minutes trying to work out how it works with no success - you explained it in just like 10... AMAZING!

[@asifsiddique9586]

Best explainable available on KZbin

[@javadesmaeelpour7833]

Some videos like this are worth more than 100 pages of a book. Kudos to you sir!

[@kondordv]

Indeed!

[@work9167]

Wow, I have watched a lot of videos about that theme but this is the easiest explanation I have ever seen

[@anujonthemove]

I think very few people have explained the concept with such clarity!

[@chadhovey3208]

(1) Additional advantage of super: if base class name changes, descendant code need not change w the updated base class name, it stays as super, so fewer code updates. (2) Diamond inheritance generally a bad idea bc can introduce nasty bugs and storage behavior. Recommend to avoid. (3) I enjoy your videos, thank you.

1) That's a good point. 2) I tend to agree, and I cannot recall ever having used it. 3) :-)

[@galbatrollix5125]

Yo dude, you are a certified badass. Your python tutorials are one of the best on the whole youtube.

[@kris_jnr_electrical]

You made my days of python super learning end. I love you

[@barsidemen5208]

Thanks Sebastiaan! A detailed examination of composition vs inheritance in Python would be very useful with the considerations such as Abstract Base classes etc.

[@chadhovey3208]

Agreed. Is-a relationships (inheritance) can be overused, and cause has-a relationships (composition) to be overlooked.

[@alfred2153]

Ok now I understand this super() stuff. I was confused at first when I stumbled upon it. Thanks Sebastian!

[@JeremyFisher]

this channel is gold

[@rosscoguitar]

By far the best explination of this that I have come across. Thanks very much for taking the time to do this.

[@janpapaj1982]

You rock, Seb. Some of the finest OOP-related tutorial around! Thanks a lot PS. Subscribed and ready to visit again

[@ekenii]

ASAP sebbie doing the lords work

[@amitanand7534]

Damn, you're an amazing teacher.

[@sheikhakbar2067]

A clear and fun way of explaining abstract topics!

[@makoadrias6435]

It really was VERY INFORMATIVE! Thanks Sebas!

[@marwanakram2424]

oh my god i think that this is the best video that made it very clear and easy thanks dude

[@gregt194]

This was so well explained, thank you!!

[@storieswithshantanu84]

Great explaination. U saved me hours of surfing

[@augurelite]

There are a few 5 minute vids but I watched this one BC the thumbnail is cool. Very glad I picked this one you explained it so well and I love the examples :) instant sub ;) hahaha

[@kondordv]

hey man you have a gift, a great teacher to share knowledge in such way that students to understand without any question. I sincerely say that I would like to work with a person like you. Greetings to you!

[@ayushtewari467]

Simple and brilliant explanation.

[@AndrasSimo-zf8yl]

just here to boost the algorithm this video deserves more views!

[@Sickims]

This is easily the best video explaining this topic. I finally understood it. Thanks!

[@stephenhiggin9597]

Thanks for this. Tried to watch something on LinkedIn Learning about this and was very confused. This is very clear.

[@shubhjangid7881]

This is something called a crystal clear explanation. Thank You Sir @Sebastiaan Mathôt

[@ayelenparis3957]

Finally someone who knows how to explain this! Thank youuuu!

[@prashantgade2460]

Awesome explaination .It was pretty helpful

[@swaysue8076]

Hippest python lesson ive recieved by far.

[@shashvatverma5673]

Ah man this is a difficult topic to understand but I finally got it! Thanks :))

[@sauravprashar]

Best Explanation, Made it really easy to understand

[@martian6201]

I am so late. going to subscribe to your channel not sure if you have more content will check out your account soon. First I want to say your explanations are the best I have ever come across. So im hoping YOU ARE STILL POSTING MORE CONTENT. This is fantastic so very well done. I am now going to subscribe to your channel. Thank you so much Sabastiaan I am ever so grateful for you.

Thanks for your comment! I don't post new videos very frequently, that's true But once I find the time and inspiration, new videos will come!

[@kkmahapatra8538]

Got it in just one go ,thank you man it helped a lot .

[@i701Dev]

Great explanation! You have earned a sub!

[@polakpuckstopper]

Superb explanation. Thank you!

[@kalik54]

Man I love your videos, please dont drop your channel

I have no plans to stop, don't worry! I just don't post new videos very often because I'm busy with other things too.

[@kalik54]

@ Glad to hear it, thanks for the videos, you helped me a lot :3

[@SebastianMantey]

That’s an amazing explanation. Clear and Concise. Kudos!

[@chrispeters8208]

best explanation of super i have seen. will watch more of your vids thx

[@ibekwevictor1158]

Thank you ASAPsebbie for this tutorial

[@ijgr11]

Excellent Explanation!!!!

[@ranjit9427]

This is GOLD!!!!!

Glad you like it!

[@allisteria5906]

Fantastic Tutorial.

[@Raiden_Amani]

Perfect Explanation. Thank you so much 💖

[@guntbert9709]

Great explanation, thank you. Just a small addition in favour of using super() instead of explicit calling: when you (for some reason) choose another superclass it is EASY to forget to change the line with the explicit __init__() call.

Good point !

[@m0b13]

you are a Genius Educator!

[@jackzero5230]

Brilliant!! you are a Sebastiaan Vettal in python tutorials!

[@svergurd3873]

Very clear and good explanation!

[@abdulhalimabdullahi9907]

this is the best explanation, thank you very much

[@Abhishek-bu1eu]

Great explanation. Please Keep Up The GOOD WORK. U are god sent

[@THOMASKUTTYREJI]

great explanation .........if possible make a separate playlist for object oriented programming in python

[@noe177a]

Excellent video!!!

[@alpstinger5083]

Super duper clear!

[@Philogy]

Great video, but I have a question, what about arguments? What if the classes ASAPRocky and KanyeWest take different arguments when being instantiated? How could one handle that and would one still use the super function?

That's a great question, which maybe I should've touched upon in the video. When you use super(), you don't know exactly which function will be called. Therefore, you cannot mix functions with different arguments in a 'super chain'. When arguments do differ from function to function (which would not be very elegant, but it can happen), you have to resort back to explicitly calling the base classes.

[@racrity]

Genio total! Muchísimas gracias por subir el video, muy clara forma de explicar la función.

[@alissamiche]

Very well explained, thank you!

[@walkswithcedarandmaddy6672]

thank you, friend. this was extremely helpful for me.

[@budgetgamerlegion]

Very well explained. 👌👌👌👌👌

[@muhammadprawirayuda3510]

nice explaination, really understood

[@shamrock6644]

This is a great video, too many videos just gloss over how super handles multiple inheritance.

[@schogaia]

Sebastiaan, you create excellent videos I enjoy them a lot and I wanted to say thank you for your amazing work! I did not find a PayPal Link in your profile but I'd like to send you a tip. Could you add a link to your videos so people can tip you? Thanks again for your terrific work

Thank you, that's very kind. I never considered that for KZbin, but I have links for small donations on this website (for my main software project, on which the editor in the video is also based): osdoc.cogsci.nl/3.3/download/

[@schogaia]

@ sent you a tip. Please add this also to your videos - you deserve it!

Thank you!

[@schogaia]

@ you're welcome!

[@coolymoody]

Beautifully explained A$AP Sebbie!

[@ketanbutte3497]

great explanation on super.__init vs using base class .__init__

[@Hanson-e4m]

Thanks for clarification of this topic

[@kclaiborn6257]

Cool explanation for Super!

[@greob]

Thanks! Still a bit confused about the arguments passed to super() but I suppose most of the time it's not needed if I call __init__() explicitly.

The arguments are only necessary when super() is called from outside a method. When called from inside a method, super() infers the arguments automatically, so to say.

[@BrendanMetcalfe]

Thanks! Loving the new videos

[@JackInTheFrost]

Very well explained, thank you.

[@lucasl8882]

Very well explained, thanks.

[@maya11537]

I love the way you teach 👍

[@alfredoa334]

Great video!!! Congratulations. Thank you very much!!!

[@TheJphrubant]

I would think that the super function in ASAPSebbie first calls the __init__ function from AsapRocky, because it's the first class that is passed to AsapDebbie Then it calls the __init__ function in KanyeWest because that is the second class that is pass to ASAPSebbie

[@darsemana512]

Awesome explaination, thanks!

[@kaiyuan-wang]

Thanks for the video Seb! I have a question though. class Portishead: def __init__(self): print('Portishead') class KanyeWest: def __init__(self): print('KanyeWest') class ASAPRocky(Portishead, KanyeWest): def __init__(self): super().__init__() print('ASAPRocky') asap_rocky = ASAPRocky() The above code outputs only 2 lines without 'KanyeWest': Portishead ASAPRocky Why is that? How to modify the code to print out all of the three? Thanks!!

You have to call super().__init__() also in the other __init__() functions!

[@oktayaltunok8777]

great explanation! now its crystal clear :)

[@aaplidhanwantari4589]

amazing explaination

[@mafiaboy16]

Zuiver man. ik wist van super maar deze informatie was voor mij onbekend

[@compusaveit]

Dude is a ROCKSTAR!!!!!!!!

[@AcademiaPython]

Hi Sebastiaan, nice video btw. I've a question: does the mro apply in this case? So, we have three ways to make inheritance, super(), MRO and explicitly call the __init__ of parent class, is that correct?

[@allisonhazlett1879]

beautiful explanation, thanks a ton!!!

[@kychemclass5850]

Would it be correct to think of super() as compiling a "pythonic set" of inits (and perhaps sets of all other inherited methods?) therefore only allowing one occurrence of an otherwise multiplex of the same init???

[@westernfriend]

Brilliant mate

[@schogaia]

A very small benefit could also be that renaming the parent class is a little bit easier because you don't have to rename it in the __init__ function but that can be probably neglected.

That's a good point actually. It's a small but worthwhile benefit.

[@the_okoh]

does the order of the (KanyeWest, ASAPRocky) matter in the ASAPSebbie class? Which of the classes is calling the base __init__() ?

[@anshjain6293]

Very well made!

[@deeps-n5y]

Brilliant video as usual!

[@angel_machariel]

Good explanation on the how for sure. But I'm looking for the "why". With this explanation, based on what the debugger shows, why is ASAPRocky responsible to figure out it should call the KanyeWest constructor?

[@divinityinversace]

did you figure it out?

[@angel_machariel]

@@divinityinversace I can't remember. I went back to C#.

[@maximilianogonzalez988]

excellent video

[@cyclogenisis]

Covered this fairly well however can you explain what unbound means when the instance of the object is not passed in as a super argument?

I don't know the context, but I'm general 'unbound' suggests that something, such as a method of a class, doesn't know which instance of the class it should operate on.

[@cyclogenisis]

@ Right so the context here is when we call super and only pass in the class and leave the optional object instance out of the arguments. I think it may have been nice to also go over that in the vid because I'm struggling to understand why not passing the instance of the object would be at all useful to us.

@@cyclogenisis Passing classes and objects is for very specific situations in which you want to explicitly control the method resolution order, instead of using the default order as I'm doing here in the video (i.e. the order in which parent classes are traversed). I have never actually made us of this (and I struggle to think of a single real-life case in which you would need it!) so I don't know the details of how this works. In general you don't pass any arguments to super(), though!

[@am8537]

very explicit video, thank you very much!

[@jethrotayag1873]

Very clear explanation

[@raulpalmaa]

super clean explanation

[@jcsd0]

good work bro

[@divasgupta]

What a great explanation...