Extending Python's builtin Str

Question

I'm trying to subclass str, but having some difficulties due to its immutability.

class DerivedClass(str):

    def __new__(cls, string):
        ob = super(DerivedClass, cls).__new__(cls, string)
        return ob

    def upper(self):
        #overridden, new functionality. Return ob of type DerivedClass. Great.
        caps = super(DerivedClass, self).upper()
        return DerivedClass(caps + '123')

derived = DerivedClass('a')

print derived.upper() #'A123'
print type(derived.upper()) #<class '__main__.DerivedClass'>
print derived.lower() #'a' 
print type(derived.lower()) #<type 'str'>  

For inherited methods that don't require any new functionality, such as derived.lower(), is there a simple, pythonic way to return an object of type DerivedClass (instead of str)? Or am I stuck manually overriding each str.method(), as I did with derived.upper()?

Edit:

#Any massive flaws in the following?

class DerivedClass(str):
    def __new__(cls, string):
        ob = super(DerivedClass, cls).__new__(cls, string)
        return ob

    def upper(self):
        caps = super(DerivedClass, self).upper()
        return DerivedClass(caps + '123')

    def __getattribute__(self, name):
        att = super(DerivedClass, self).__getattribute__(name)

        if not callable(att):
            return att

        def call_me_later(*args, **kwargs):
            result = att(*args, **kwargs)
            if isinstance(result, basestring):
                return DerivedClass(result)
            return result
        return call_me_later

Answer 1

You can do this by overriding __getattribute__ as Zr40 suggests, but you will need to have getattribute return a callable function. The sample below should give you what you want; it uses the functools.partial wrapper to make life easier, though you could implement it without partial if you like:

from functools import partial

class DerivedClass(str):

    def __new__(cls, string):
        ob = super(DerivedClass, cls).__new__(cls, string)
        return ob

    def upper(self):
        #overridden, new functionality. Return ob of type DerivedClass. Great.
        caps = super(DerivedClass, self).upper()
        return DerivedClass(caps + '123')

    def __getattribute__(self, name):
        func = str.__getattribute__(self, name)
        if name == 'upper':
            return func

        if not callable(func):
            return func

        def call_me_later(*args, **kwargs):
            result = func(*args, **kwargs)
            # Some str functions return lists, ints, etc
            if isinstance(result, basestring:
                return DerivedClass(result)
            return result

        return partial(call_me_later)

Answer 2

Good use for a class decorator -- roughly (untested code):

@do_overrides
class Myst(str):
  def upper(self):
    ...&c...

and

def do_overrides(cls):
  done = set(dir(cls))
  base = cls.__bases__[0]
  def wrap(f):
    def wrapper(*a, **k):
      r = f(*a, **k)
      if isinstance(r, base):
        r = cls(r)
      return r
  for m in dir(base):
    if m in done or not callable(m):
      continue
    setattr(cls, m, wrap(getattr(base, m)))

Answer 3

You're both close, but checking for each doesn't extend well to overriding many methods.

from functools import partial

class DerivedClass(str):
    def __new__(cls, string):
        ob = super(DerivedClass, cls).__new__(cls, string)
        return ob

    def upper(self):
        caps = super(DerivedClass, self).upper()
        return DerivedClass(caps + '123')

    def __getattribute__(self, name):
        if name in ['__dict__', '__members__', '__methods__', '__class__']:
            return object.__getattribute__(self, name)
        func = str.__getattribute__(self, name)
        if name in self.__dict__.keys() or not callable(func):
            return func

        def call_me_later(*args, **kwargs):
            result = func(*args, **kwargs)
            # Some str functions return lists, ints, etc
            if isinstance(result, basestring):
                return DerivedClass(result)
            return result

        return partial(call_me_later)

_{(Improvements suggested by jarret hardie in comments.)}

Answer 4

You might be able to do this by overriding __getattribute__.

def __getattribute__(self, name):
    # Simple hardcoded check for upper.
    # I'm sure there are better ways to get the list of defined methods in
    # your class and see if name is contained in it.
    if name == 'upper':
        return object.__getattribute__(self, name)

    return DerivedClass(object.__getattribute__(self, name))