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Need help with OOP

Jay O'Connor joconnor at cybermesa.com
Fri Nov 7 01:01:45 EST 2003 
On Fri, 7 Nov 2003 05:36:57 +0100, sinisam <X.3.M__antispam__ at mail.ru>
wrote:

>Next part (even though I said I know *nothing* about OOP) is:
>
>"Make class for the IP address. It should be initialized from the
>string. Later on, we can add functions to it."
>
>[1] What in the world I have to do here?
>[1a] How to make class for the IP address? What does it mean?

One feature you will often see in OOP is the idea of 'wrapping' more
primitive concepts into  objects and then giving those objects more
functionality as a means of convenience.  For example, while it is
possible to trate a phone number as a simple string such as

	phoneNumber = '102.555.1234'

You can also wrapper the simple string in a class and then give it
extra functionality

	phoneNumber = PhoneNumber()
	phoneNumber._number = "102.555.1234"
	pre =  phoneNumber.prefix()

the function "prefix()" is defined by the PhoneNumber class as an
easier way of dealing with the phone number.  To create this wrapper
class in Python is easy

	class PhoneNumber:
		def __init__(self):
			self._number = ''

		def prefix (self):
			return self._number[4:7]

So the question being asked is to write a similar wrapper class that
will do the same for IP addresses


>[2] "Initialization from the string" means something like passing
>arguments from the command line...?


No, it means that when you create the object, you will provide some
information  that will set the default state of the new object

	person = Person ("O'Connor", "James")

this is done by providing paramaters for your initialization function
for the class

	class Person:

		def __init__(self, lastName, firstName):
			self._lastName = lastName
			self._firstName = firstName

This sets the lastName and firstName of the person to whatever you
tell it to be when you create the object

>Of course, I don't expect you to do the job for me, but I would sure
>appreciate help. I know this is easy, but as stated before, I don't
>know how to handle objects... yet :)

The above explanation and examples are sparse, but should be
sufficient to move you in the right direction to solve your problem

Take care,
Jay
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