5 Cool New Features in Python 3.7!

Idego • Jul 24

Python 3.7 was released on June 27, 2018. It came with few interesting features and many performance improvements. What does exactly the new Python version bring? Is it as cool as we all expected? Let’s see! In short words, you can find there:

new breakpoint() function,
async / await as reserved keywords,
module level __getattr__ and __dir__ method
nanosecond resolution in time functions
postponed evaluation of type hints (annotations)
context variables
data classes

In this note I’m going to take deep insight into data classes. In my opinion this is the most important change in our latest Python version.

Why data classes are great

Data classes allow to write more consistent and meaningful code. As other cool features in Python like e.g. generators, they provide new syntax for describing thinking processes more compactly and with less lines of code. This is what makes Python awesome ( import this ).

Let’s get to the point

Data classes provide new class decorator that can be used with classes to represent data structures. They came to the standard library with a new dataclasses module:

from dataclasses import dataclass

Simple data class

@dataclass
class City:
  citizens: int
  area: float

krakow = City(767, 326)

print(krakow)

> City(citizens=767, area=326)

With this 4-lines class declaration, we get automatically created __init__ and __repr__ function definitions.

Ordered data classes

Morover we can also define ordered data structures and compare if needed:

@dataclass(order=True)
class City:
  name: str = field(compare=False)
  citizens: int
  area: float

zamosc = City('Zamość', 65, 30)
krakow = City('Kraków', 767, 326)
ochock = City('Ochock', 3, 400)

bigger = zamosc if zamosc > krakow else krakow
print(f'Bigger city: {bigger}')
print(sorted([zamosc, krakow, ochock]))

> Bigger city: City(name='Kraków', citizens=767, area=326)
> [City(name='Ochock', citizens=3, area=400), City(name='Zamość', citizens=65, area=30), City(name='Kraków', citizens='767', area=326)]

With this example we’ve just introduced new field function (from dataclasses module). It allows to override default behavior of the class for a single field – in this case we can disable ordering based on city names.

As you can see, we can also sort data objects with sorted. What’s interesting here, is that class atributes ordering matters – in this case citizen is the significant parameter.

Default `dataclass` parameters

By default, dataclass decorator is set up with given list of parameters:

@dataclass(init=True, repr=True, eq=True, order=False, unsafe_hash=False, f)

They correspond to autogenerated methods like __init__ , __repr__ , __eq__ , __hash__ and ordering helpers ( __lt__ , __le__ , __gt__ , and __ge__ ), so you have control over what’s acutally being generated in specific case. frozen parameter allows to create immutable objects.

Inheritance

Data classes can be inherited by child-classes. Let’s see what is the ordering of the resulted class atributes.

@dataclass
class A:
  x: int = 1
  y: int = 2

@dataclass
class B(A):
  z: int = 3
  x: int = 5

print(A())
print(B())
print(B(0, 1, 2))
> A(x=1, y=2)
> B(x=5, y=2, z=3)
> B(x=0, y=1, z=2)

Field ordering from the base class is preserved.

Last but not least

@dataclass
class Product:
  size: int
  quantity: int
  price: float

p = Product(10, 1, 1.23)
print(asdict(p))
> {'size': 10, 'quantity': 1, 'price': 1.23}

Whoa! We’ve just introduced JSON serialization of Python object with just few lines of code – it wasn’t that trivial before (see this and this). With asdict dataclasses module level function, you can just get dict representation of data structure hold by given data class. Just send it over your favourite API framework.

Conclusion about python 3.7 features

Dataclasses can be very useful improvement to your daily coding style. It’s nice to have separated data model and business logic services, and with our new feature it’s easier to achieve. This new Python module allows to write data stores very explicitly. Even if if it’s not providing any new functional changes, it’s definitely good to adjust your code base. In case of updating from recent versions of Python, it’s not bringing any backwards incompatible changes, cause it’s settled in a brand new module. However, when upgrading to Python 3.7, it can be profitable to refactor existing classes to make use of dataclasses . Just identify your data objects and reduce your lines of code with @dataclass decorator. “Readability counts” – stay tuned!