Abstract attributes in Python [duplicate]

Python 3.3+

from abc import ABCMeta, abstractmethod


class A(metaclass=ABCMeta):
    def __init__(self):
        # ...
        pass

    @property
    @abstractmethod
    def a(self):
        pass

    @abstractmethod
    def b(self):
        pass


class B(A):
    a = 1

    def b(self):
        pass

Failure to declare a or b in the derived class B will raise a TypeError such as:

TypeError: Can't instantiate abstract class B with abstract methods a

Python 2.7

There is an @abstractproperty decorator for this:

from abc import ABCMeta, abstractmethod, abstractproperty


class A:
    __metaclass__ = ABCMeta

    def __init__(self):
        # ...
        pass

    @abstractproperty
    def a(self):
        pass

    @abstractmethod
    def b(self):
        pass


class B(A):
    a = 1

    def b(self):
        pass

Python has a built-in exception for this, though you won't encounter the exception until runtime.

class Base(object):
    @property
    def path(self):
        raise NotImplementedError


class SubClass(Base):
    path = 'blah'