If the class A.B is unlikely to participate in any multiple inheritance, then you re better off just hard-coding the constructor call:
class A(object):
class B(object):
def __init__(self):
object.__init__(self)
But if you really do need to have the full power of super, then you can get what you want by defining a custom descriptor that will initialize the B attribute lazily:
class LazyAttribute(object):
def __init__(self, func, *args, **kwargs):
self._func = func
self._args = args
self._kwargs = kwargs
self._value = None
def __get__(self, obj, type=None):
if self._value is None:
print created , self._value
self._value = self._func(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
return self._value
class A(object):
class B(object):
def __init__(self):
super(A.B, self).__init__()
someattribute = LazyAttribute(B)
This will cause the B attribute to be instantiated the first time it s accessed, and then reused thereafter:
>>> print A.someattribute
created <__main__.B object at 0x00AA8E70>
<__main__.B object at 0x00AA8E90>
>>> print A().someattribute
<__main__.B object at 0x00AA8E90>
For more info on descriptors, see: http://users.rcn.com/python/download/Descriptor.htm