Skip to main content
https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/overrides.svg http://pepy.tech/badge/overrides

A decorator that verifies that a method that should override an inherited method actually does, and that copies the docstring of the inherited method to the overridden method. Since signature validation and docstring inheritance are performed on class creation and not on class instantiation, this library significantly improves the safety and experience of creating class hierarchies in Python without significantly impacting performance. See https://stackoverflow.com/q/1167617 for the initial inspiration for this library.

Motivation

Python has no standard mechanism by which to guarantee that (1) a method that previously overrode an inherited method continues to do so, and (2) a method that previously did not override an inherited will not override now. This opens the door for subtle problems as class hierarchies evolve over time. For example,

  1. A method that is added to a superclass is shadowed by an existing method with the same name in a subclass.

  2. A method of a superclass that is overridden by a subclass is renamed in the superclass but not in the subclass.

  3. A method of a superclass that is overridden by a subclass is removed in the superclass but not in the subclass.

  4. A method of a superclass that is overridden by a subclass but the signature of the overridden method is incompatible with that of the inherited one.

These can be only checked by explicitly marking method override in the code.

Python also has no standard mechanism by which to inherit docstrings in overridden methods. Because most standard linters (e.g., flake8) have rules that require all public methods to have a docstring, this inevitably leads to a proliferation of See parent class for usage docstrings on overridden methods, or, worse, to a disabling of these rules altogether. In addition, mediocre or missing docstrings degrade the quality of tooltips and completions that can be provided by an editor.

Installation

Compatible with Python 3.6+.

$ pip install overrides

Usage

Use @overrides to indicate that a subclass method should override a superclass method.

from overrides import overrides

class SuperClass:

    def foo(self):
        """This docstring will be inherited by any method that overrides this!"""
        return 1

    def bar(self, x) -> str:
        return x

class SubClass(SuperClass):

    @overrides
    def foo(self):
        return 2

    @overrides
    def bar(self, y) -> int: # Raises, because the signature is not compatible.
        return y

Use EnforceOverrides to require subclass methods that shadow superclass methods to be decorated with @overrides.

from overrides import EnforceOverrides

class SuperClass(EnforceOverrides):

    def foo(self):
        return 1

class SubClass(SuperClass):

    def foo(self): # Raises, because @overrides is missing.
        return 2

Use @final to indicate that a superclass method cannot be overriden.

from overrides import EnforceOverrides, final

class SuperClass(EnforceOveriddes):

    @final
    def foo(self):
        return 1

class SubClass(SuperClass):

    @overrides
    def foo(self): # Raises, because overriding a final method is forbidden.
        return 2

Note that @classmethod and @staticmethod must be declared before @overrides.

from overrides import overrides

class SuperClass:

    @staticmethod
    def foo(x):
        return 1

class SubClass(SuperClass):

    @staticmethod
    @overrides
    def foo(x):
        return 2

Contributors

This project exists only through the work of all the people who contribute.

mkorpela, drorasaf, ngoodman90, TylerYep, leeopop, donpatrice, jayvdb, joelgrus, lisyarus, soulmerge, rkr-at-dbx, ashwin153, brentyi

Metadata

Release files for overrides 6.1.0

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for overrides 6.1.0
File Size Uploaded
overrides-6.1.0.tar.gz 18.5 kB Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for overrides 6.1.0
File Interpreter ABI Platform
overrides-6.1.0-py3-none-any.whl Python 3 none any Details

Total release size: 32.6 kB

Release files / overrides-6.1.0.tar.gz

Download URL overrides-6.1.0.tar.gz
Size 18.5 kB
Tags Source
SHA-256 checksum
How to use checksums
5ba636b73bf72d3d80550f4a5dfe3c7d04ec6e8fd246c4074bfc7ad82bd0ea3d
BLAKE2b-256 checksum
How to use checksums
52867f70ed8b5957b094a432cc839ea99cffac62a41861d4d2075d742a45953b
Upload date
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing?
What is trusted publishing?
No
Uploaded via twine/3.4.1 importlib_metadata/4.0.1 pkginfo/1.7.0 requests/2.25.1 requests-toolbelt/0.9.1 tqdm/4.60.0 CPython/3.9.1

Release files / overrides-6.1.0-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL overrides-6.1.0-py3-none-any.whl
Size 14.0 kB
Tags Python 3
SHA-256 checksum
How to use checksums
33926e018a952b06309517b3febede982112b86430e588bdd00560b80a4a800b
BLAKE2b-256 checksum
How to use checksums
db521ee39040faa35ee9a609a4c7c95b017713f0b8d63399d5ecbaa6555a3cea
Upload date
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing?
What is trusted publishing?
No
Uploaded via twine/3.4.1 importlib_metadata/4.0.1 pkginfo/1.7.0 requests/2.25.1 requests-toolbelt/0.9.1 tqdm/4.60.0 CPython/3.9.1

Release history Release notifications | RSS feed

7.7.0

2 release files

7.6.0

2 release files

7.5.0

2 release files

7.4.0

2 release files

7.3.1

2 release files

7.3.0

2 release files

7.2.0

2 release files

7.1.0

2 release files

7.0.0

2 release files

6.5.0

2 release files

6.4.0

2 release files

6.3.0

2 release files

6.2.0

2 release files

This release

6.1.0 This release

2 release files

6.0.1

2 release files

6.0.0

2 release files

5.0.1

2 release files

5.0.0

2 release files

4.1.2

2 release files

4.1.1

2 release files

4.1.0

2 release files

4.0.0

1 release file

3.1.0

1 release file

3.0.0

1 release file

2.8.0

1 release file

2.7.0

1 release file

2.6

1 release file

2.5

1 release file

2.4

1 release file

2.3

1 release file

2.2

1 release file

2.1

1 release file

2.0

1 release file

1.9

1 release file

1.8

2 release files

1.7

1 release file

1.6

1 release file

0.5

1 release file

0.4

2 release files

0.3

2 release files

0.2

1 release file

0.1

1 release file

Anthropic, PBC Visionary sponsor Bloomberg Visionary sponsor Hudson River Trading Visionary sponsor Meta Visionary sponsor NVIDIA Visionary sponsor Microsoft Sustainability sponsor Depot Continuous Integration AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page