__new__()

The __new__() static method creates a new instance of a class cls and takes in the class (of which the instance was requested) as the first argument.

Syntax

class ClassName:
  def __new__(cls, *args, **kwargs):
    obj = super().__new__(cls)
    return obj

Object creation is typically done by invoking the superclass’ __new__() in two ways. The first argument of __new__() is always the class which is passed in as the first parameter automatically. The name cls is not a keyword; it’s used to reference the class (the first parameter) by convention. When __new__() returns an instance of cls it automatically invokes the __init__() method of that instance with the arguments passed to it. The first argument passed to __init__() will be the instance itself (this happens automatically) which is by convention referenced by self.

In the example above, no parent class was specified, therefore, the class will directly inherit from the object base class (from which all classes inherit). Calling it explicitly using object.__new__(cls) will have the same effect.

When the following pseudocode is appended to the previous one above:

def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
    print(*args, **kwargs)

class_instance = ClassName(1, 2)

__new__() is invoked during the construction of the object (instance of class ClassName) with the arguments 1 and 2 which are accepted within \*args. The object is created by calling the __new__() method of the object base class which only takes in the class cls. It then returns an object which is then stored in obj and returned. This invokes the __init__() method of the ClassName class with the arguments (obj, \*args, \*\*kwargs).

This method has two main applications:

• Customizing how new class instances are created.
• Subclassing of immutable types which cannot be initialized via a simple __init__() method.

Example

In the following example, the number of instances of the class Test is limited to ‘MaxNumberOfInstances’:

class Test(object):
    numberOfInstances = 0
    MaxNumberOfInstances = 4

    def __new__(cls, value):
        if cls.numberOfInstances >= cls.MaxNumberOfInstances:
            raise ValueError("Maximum number of instances of Test exceeded")
        cls.numberOfInstances += 1
        obj = super().__new__(cls)
        return obj

    def __init__(self, value):
        self.value = value

Codebyte Example

The codebyte example below creates a subclass of the int class called MyInt. MyInt will have a mutable bitLength property. Note that when the int class’ __new__() method is invoked, value is passed in as the second argument. When __new__() returns an int object, it will initialize it with value. The bitlength attribute as well as any other attribute can also be initialized within the __new__() method of myInt.

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