From what I understand of Python 3, the type type
is the meta-class that is used to create Class objects, so type
is to object
as \"Car\"
Every class of objects in Python inherits the behaviours of the object
class. Firstly, it means that
>>> isinstance(x, object)
True
will be true in Python 3 no matter what x
happens to be bound to. It also means that everything will also inherit the methods of the object
as such, unless overridden by a more specific class. Thus, x == y
will resort to object.__eq__
if neither of x
or y
overrode the __eq__
method.
type
in Python 3 is also an object - it inherits from object:
>>> isinstance(type, object)
True
It means that type
is an object, and it has inherited the behaviour from the object
class. That is what enables one to write things like
>>> type == type
True
>>> type.__eq__
<slot wrapper '__eq__' of 'object' objects>
The type.__eq__
was inherited from the object
class.
But the object
class itself is also a type:
>>> isinstance(object, type)
True
It means that the class object
as an object inherits the behaviour of type
- type
is object's metaclass.
And of course type
's metaclass is type:
>>> isinstance(type, type)
True
And the class object
is an object
too:
>>> isinstance(object, object)
True
When you construct an instance of class, the class itself is responsible for both the meat and bones for that class, but perhaps one could put the distinction in that the bones follows the ordinary class inheritance, and meat is split between the class and the metaclass lineage; and the metaclass is also the bones for the class object itself.