How do I avoid the “self.x = x; self.y = y; self.z = z” pattern in __init__?

Question

I see patterns like

def __init__(self, x, y, z):
    ...
    self.x = x
    self.y = y
    self.z = z
    ...

quite frequently, often with

Answer 1

To expand on gruszczys answer, I have used a pattern like:

class X:
    x = None
    y = None
    z = None
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        for (k, v) in kwargs.items():
            if hasattr(self, k):
                setattr(self, k, v)
            else:
                raise TypeError('Unknown keyword argument: {:s}'.format(k))

I like this method because it:

• avoids repetition
• is resistant against typos when constructing an object
• works well with subclassing (can just super().__init(...))
• allows for documentation of the attributes on a class-level (where they belong) rather than in X.__init__

Prior to Python 3.6, this gives no control over the order in which the attributes are set, which could be a problem if some attributes are properties with setters that access other attributes.

It could probably be improved upon a bit, but I'm the only user of my own code so I am not worried about any form of input sanitation. Perhaps an AttributeError would be more appropriate.