How to call a base class __init__ as self?

Question

How do I re-initialize the base class using self.__init__ ?

In the following example my goal is to inherit eComm which is a socket derived driver. This handles connect/disconnect. If it disconnects we need to reinitialize it using __init__ , however it appears to refer to the comDriver when self.__init__ is called.

How do I properly initialize the superclass to allow for this?

(else: self.__init__ in connect() is referring to comDriver, not eComm like it should)

The following is a simple case to reproduce the error in Python 3.x

class eComm():

    def __init__(self):
        self.s = "example object"
        self.initialized = True                                    
        self.connected = False                                

    def connect(self, IP_ADDRESS, PORT):                
        if self.initialized:                                
            print(IP_ADDRESS, PORT)
        else:                                        
            print("REINITIALIZING")
            self.__init__()                        
        self.connected = True                             

        return(True)

class comDriver(eComm):

    def __init__(self, IP_ADDRESS, PORT):
        self.IP = IP_ADDRESS
        self.PORT = PORT
        super().__init__()
        pass

    def getTemp(self):
        print("EXAMPLE FUNCTION")
        return(1)

x = comDriver("192", 7)

x.connect("161", 6)
x.initialized = False
x.connect("111", 5)

Answer 1

IMO you're using the special method __init__ wrongly. It's meant to initialize a Python object, not anything outside that scope.

With your intention, I recommend that you create a separate initializer function, and call it from __init__ . Here's an example:

class eComm():
    def __init__(self):
        self.initialize_eComm()

    def initialize_eComm(self):
        self.s = "example object"
        self.initialized = True
        self.connected = False

And then you can replace self.__init__() with self.initialize_eComm() to avoid name conflict in subclasses.

Answer 2

self.__init__ in connect() is referring to comDriver, not eComm like it should

This doesn't quite hold -- self refers to the calling object, which is comDriver . If you want to call to the __init__ method on eComm regardless of what classes extend it, you will have to reference in explicitly.

eComm.__init__(self)

But, the other answers and comments are right that this is not a good use of __init__ .