Curriculum
In Python 3.7 and later versions, the dataclass decorator provides a way to automatically generate special methods like __init__, __repr__, __eq__, __ne__, and others for a class with a minimum amount of boilerplate code. It is used to define simple classes that mainly just hold data, and allows us to avoid writing lots of repetitive boilerplate code.
Here’s an example of how to use the dataclass decorator:
from dataclasses import dataclass
@dataclass
class Person:
name: str
age: int
email: str = ''
person = Person("Alice", 25, "[email protected]")
print(person)
In this example, we define a Person class using the dataclass decorator. We specify the fields of the class as parameters to the decorator. In this case, we have three fields: name, age, and email.
When we use the dataclass decorator, it automatically generates the __init__, __repr__, and other special methods for us. We can then create instances of the Person class by passing the values for the fields as arguments to the constructor.
In the example, we create an instance of the Person class and print it to the console. The __repr__ method generated by the dataclass decorator is used to produce a string representation of the Person object.
The output of the above code will be:
Person(name='Alice', age=25, email='[email protected]')
As you can see, we were able to create a simple data class with a minimum amount of boilerplate code using the dataclass decorator. It’s a useful feature that makes it easy to define simple classes that mainly just hold data.