Page Content
Page Summaries

Introduction

This article explains the @abstractmethod decorator in Python, which is used in combination with the Abstract Base Classes (ABCs) module to define abstract methods within abstract classes.

Abstract methods are declarations without implementation in the abstract base class. This means that the method must be implemented in its concrete subclasses. The @abstractmethod decorator is used to mark a method as an abstract method.

Abstract classes cannot be instantiated directly; they serve as blueprints for other classes to derive from. Abstract classes are defined using the abc.ABC metaclass or by inheriting from abc.ABC.

The `@abstractmethod` Decorator

from abc import ABC, abstractmethod

class MyABC(ABC):
    @abstractmethod
    def my_abstract_method(self):
        pass

This code block defines an abstract class MyABC with an abstract method my_abstract_method. The @abstractmethod decorator is used to mark my_abstract_method as an abstract method. Abstract methods are declarations without implementation in the abstract base class, and they must be implemented in its concrete subclasses.

In this case, any subclass inheriting from MyABC must provide an implementation for the my_abstract_method. This code block is an example of how to define an abstract class and an abstract method using the @abstractmethod decorator.

The @abstractmethod decorator is used to define abstract methods in abstract classes. Abstract methods have no implementation in the abstract base class and must be implemented in its concrete subclasses. This code block demonstrates how to define an abstract method using the @abstractmethod decorator.

Abstract Base Classes

In Python, abstract classes cannot be instantiated directly. They serve as blueprints for other classes to derive from. Abstract classes are defined using the abc.ABC metaclass or by inheriting from abc.ABC.

import abc

class Shape(abc.ABC):
    @abc.abstractmethod
    def area(self):
        pass

Introduction

The @abstractmethod Decorator

Abstract Base Classes

The `@abstractmethod` Decorator