Objects

Object notation

Lists and strings (which you have already seen) and sets and dictionaries (which are coming up soon) are objects. There is special terminology for talking about objects:

• A method is a function defined on an object.
• You don’t “call” methods. You send messages to an object. This is unwieldy, so I like to say you talk to objects.

Along with this, there is a special notation for using objects:

1. Name the object you are talking to.
2. Put a period (.).
3. Write the method name, along with any arguments (comma separated and in parentheses).

For example, if s is the string Hello World, then s.lower() is the string hello world. You can think of this as saying, “Hey s, give me a lowercase version of yourself.”