What is the difference between class and instance attributes?

Question

Is there any meaningful distinction between:

class A(object):
    foo = 5   # some default value

vs.

class B(object):
    d         


        

Answer 1

The difference is that the attribute on the class is shared by all instances. The attribute on an instance is unique to that instance.

If coming from C++, attributes on the class are more like static member variables.