Inheritance and Overriding __init__ in python

The book is a bit dated with respect to subclass-superclass calling. It's also a little dated with respect to subclassing built-in classes.

It looks like this nowadays:

class FileInfo(dict):
    """store file metadata"""
    def __init__(self, filename=None):
        super(FileInfo, self).__init__()
        self["name"] = filename

Note the following:

1. We can directly subclass built-in classes, like dict, list, tuple, etc.

2. The super function handles tracking down this class's superclasses and calling functions in them appropriately.

In each class that you need to inherit from, you can run a loop of each class that needs init'd upon initiation of the child class...an example that can copied might be better understood...

class Female_Grandparent:
    def __init__(self):
        self.grandma_name = 'Grandma'

class Male_Grandparent:
    def __init__(self):
        self.grandpa_name = 'Grandpa'

class Parent(Female_Grandparent, Male_Grandparent):
    def __init__(self):
        Female_Grandparent.__init__(self)
        Male_Grandparent.__init__(self)

        self.parent_name = 'Parent Class'

class Child(Parent):
    def __init__(self):
        Parent.__init__(self)
#---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#
        for cls in Parent.__bases__: # This block grabs the classes of the child
             cls.__init__(self)      # class (which is named 'Parent' in this case), 
                                     # and iterates through them, initiating each one.
                                     # The result is that each parent, of each child,
                                     # is automatically handled upon initiation of the 
                                     # dependent class. WOOT WOOT! :D
#---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#



g = Female_Grandparent()
print g.grandma_name

p = Parent()
print p.grandma_name

child = Child()

print child.grandma_name