class - How to return a value from __init__ in Python?

Question

I have a class with an __init__ function.

How can I return an integer value from this function when an object is created?

I wrote a program, where __init__ does command line parsing and I need to have some value set. Is it OK set it in global variable and use it in other member functions? If so how to do that? So far, I declared a variable outside class. and setting it one function doesn't reflect in other function ??

Answer 1

Why would you want to do that?

If you want to return some other object when a class is called, then use the __new__() method:

class MyClass(object):
    def __init__(self):
        print "never called in this case"
    def __new__(cls):
        return 42

obj = MyClass()
print obj