Python TypeError: 'str' object is not callable for class

Question

Please help me understand this. I created a really simple program to try to understand classes. ``` class One(object): def __init__(self, class2): self.name = 'Amy' self.age = 21 self.class2 = class2 def greeting(self): self.name = raw_input("What is your name?: ") print 'hi %s' % self.name def birthday(self): self.age = int(raw_input("What is your age?: ")) print self.age def buy(self): print 'You buy ', self.class2.name class Two(object): def __init__(self): self.name = 'Polly' self.gender = 'female' def name(self): self.gender = raw_input("Is she male or female? ") if self.gender == 'male'.lower(): self.gender = 'male' else: self.gender = 'female' self.name = raw_input("What do you want to name her? ") print "Her gender is %s and her name is %s" % (self.gender, self.name) Polly = Two() Amy = One(Polly) # I want it to print Amy.greeting() Amy.buy() Amy.birthday() ``` THE PROBLEM CODE ``` Polly.name() # TypeError: 'str' object is not callable Two.name(Polly)# Works. Why? ``` Why does…

Accepted Answer

The class `Two` has an instance method `name()`. So `Two.name` refers to this method and the following code works fine:

```
Polly = Two()
Two.name(Polly)
```

However in `__init__()`, you override `name` by setting it to a string, so any time you create a new instance of `Two`, the `name` attribute will refer to the string instead of the function. This is why the following fails:

```
Polly = Two()      # Polly.name is now the string 'Polly'
Polly.name()       # this is equivalent to 'Polly'()
```

Just make sure you are using separate variable names for your methods and your instance variables.

Python TypeError: 'str' object is not callable for class

Solution

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