How do I check (at runtime) if one class is a subclass of another?

Question

Let\'s say that I have a class Suit and four subclasses of suit: Heart, Spade, Diamond, Club.

class Suit:
   ...
class Heart(Suit):
   ...
class Spade(Suit):         


        

Answer 1

issubclass(class, classinfo)

Excerpt:

Return true if class is a subclass (direct, indirect or virtual) of classinfo.

Answer 2

You can use isinstance if you have an instance, or issubclass if you have a class. Normally thought its a bad idea. Normally in Python you work out if an object is capable of something by attempting to do that thing to it.

Answer 3

The issubclass(sub, sup) boolean function returns true if the given subclass sub is indeed a subclass of the superclass sup.

Answer 4

issubclass minimal runnable example

Here is a more complete example with some assertions:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

class Base:
    pass

class Derived(Base):
    pass

base = Base()
derived = Derived()

# Basic usage.
assert issubclass(Derived, Base)
assert not issubclass(Base, Derived)

# True for same object.
assert issubclass(Base, Base)

# Cannot use object of class.
try:
    issubclass(derived, Base)
except TypeError:
    pass
else:
    assert False

# Do this instead.
assert isinstance(derived, Base)

GitHub upstream.

Tested in Python 3.5.2.

Answer 5

#issubclass(child,parent)

class a:
    pass
class b(a):
    pass
class c(b):
    pass

print(issubclass(c,b))#it returns true

Answer 6

You can use issubclass() like this assert issubclass(suit, Suit).