Why do I get “AttributeError: 'super' object has no attribute '__del__'” when calling the destructor of super from my Thread subclass' destructor?

Question

In my Python (3.6) program, I have a thread object, like so:

class MyThread(threading.Thread):
    def __init__(self):
        super(MyThread, self).__init__()
        ...

    def __del__(self):
        ...
        super(type(self), self).__del__()

    def run(self):
        ...

used in the main program like this:

def main():
    my_thread = MyThread()
    my_thread.start()
    ...
    my_thread.join()

But as soon as I try to run this program, I get the following Python crash:

Exception ignored in: <bound method MyThread.__del__ of <MyThread(Thread-6, stopped 1234)>>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:/my_proj/my_program.py", line 123, in __del__
  super(type(self), self).__del__()
AttributeError: 'super' object has no attribute '__del__'

Why is this, and how can it be fixed?

Is it not allowed to call the __del__() method of super explicitly like this, or what? (Google seems to tell me otherwise, but still won't give me any answer to why this happens)

Answer 1

super(type(self), self) is always wrong . In Python 2, you must explicitly name the current class, eg super(MyThread, self) . In Python 3, you can simply use super() :

class MyThread(threading.Thread):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        # ...

    def run(self):
        # ...

That said, if if the superclass has no __del__ then you'll get this AttributeError . If your base classes have no __del__ you can simply omit it. There is rarely a good reason to implement __del__ in your class.

If you need controlled cleanup, consider using implementing a context manager .