Initializing Objects

What is an initializer?

As the name suggests, the initializer is used to initialize an object of a class. It’s a special method that outlines the steps that are performed when an object of a class is created in the program. It’s used to define and assign values to instance variables.

The initialization method is similar to other methods but has a pre-defined name, __init__.

The double underscores mean this is a special method that the Python interpreter will treat as a special case.

The initializer is a special method because it does not have a return type. The first parameter of __init__ is self, which is a way to refer to the object being initialized.

It is always a good practice to define it as the first member method in the class definition.

Defining initializers

Initializers are called when an object of a class is created. See the example below: