How to pass arguments to parent class with inheritance and with super keyword?

Question

My program is shown below:

class BioData:
    def __init__(self, FirstName, LastName):
        self.FirstName = FirstName
        self.LastName = LastName

class BioData_OP(BioData):
    def __init__(self, age, address):
        super().__init__(FirstName,LastName)
        self.age = age
        self.address = address

mydata = BioData_OP(36,"CNGF","Big","Bee")

I am getting an error. I know if I pass two arguments it won't give me an error but in that case how I can get the first name and last name?

I do not want to initialize their values in class BioData_OP . Do I need to create a separate object for BioData? if yes then what is the benefit of using inheritance or the super keyword.

Answer 1

The point of inheritance is to indicate that a certain class (ex. Dog ) has an " is a " relationship with a parent class (ex. Animal ). So, a Dog is an Animal but with certain properties that only dogs have (or appropriate only to dogs).

class Animal:
  def __init__(self, name):
    self.name = name

class Dog(Animal):
  def __init__(self, name, breed):
    super().__init__(name)
    self.breed = breed

a_dog = Dog("woolfie", "labrador")

Here, the __init__ still takes a name , but also takes in extra attributes specific for a dog, such as breed . For the common attribute name , that's where you can just pass it along to the parent class with super .

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So, applying that to your code, I'm assuming a BioData_OP object is a type of BioData , but with added age and address attributes. The __init__ should probably still accept the same first name and last name, but then just have added parameters for age and address .

class BioData:
    def __init__(self, first_name, last_name):
        self.first_name = first_name
        self.last_name = last_name

class BioData_OP(BioData):
    def __init__(self, first_name, last_name, age, address):
        super().__init__(first_name, last_name)
        self.age = age
        self.address = address

mydata = BioData_OP("Big","Bee", 36,"CNGF")