161
votes

I have defined a class in a file named Object.py. When I try to inherit from this class in another file, calling the constructor throws an exception:

TypeError: module.__init__() takes at most 2 arguments (3 given)

This is my code:

import Object

class Visitor(Object):
    pass

instance = Visitor()  # this line throws the exception

What am I doing wrong?

5
Could you please select the answer provided? It appears to be correct and will allow other questions to be closed as dupes of yours.Mad Physicist
Hey @wakamdr the duplicate question functionality is pretty useful. Is there a reason why my answer is not correct?Sheena
An answer doesn't need to be accepted for other questions to be dupe-closed as duplicates of this one.user2357112 supports Monica

5 Answers

264
votes

Your error is happening because Object is a module, not a class. So your inheritance is screwy.

Change your import statement to:

from Object import ClassName

and your class definition to:

class Visitor(ClassName):

or

change your class definition to:

class Visitor(Object.ClassName):
   etc
12
votes

Even after @Mickey Perlstein's answer and his 3 hours of detective work, it still took me a few more minutes to apply this to my own mess. In case anyone else is like me and needs a little more help, here's what was going on in my situation.

  • responses is a module
  • Response is a base class within the responses module
  • GeoJsonResponse is a new class derived from Response

Initial GeoJsonResponse class:

from pyexample.responses import Response

class GeoJsonResponse(Response):

    def __init__(self, geo_json_data):

Looks fine. No problems until you try to debug the thing, which is when you get a bunch of seemingly vague error messages like this:

from pyexample.responses import GeoJsonResponse ..\pyexample\responses\GeoJsonResponse.py:12: in (module) class GeoJsonResponse(Response):

E TypeError: module() takes at most 2 arguments (3 given)

=================================== ERRORS ====================================

___________________ ERROR collecting tests/test_geojson.py ____________________

test_geojson.py:2: in (module) from pyexample.responses import GeoJsonResponse ..\pyexample\responses \GeoJsonResponse.py:12: in (module)

class GeoJsonResponse(Response): E TypeError: module() takes at most 2 arguments (3 given)

ERROR: not found: \PyExample\tests\test_geojson.py::TestGeoJson::test_api_response

C:\Python37\lib\site-packages\aenum__init__.py:163

(no name 'PyExample\ tests\test_geojson.py::TestGeoJson::test_api_response' in any of [])

The errors were doing their best to point me in the right direction, and @Mickey Perlstein's answer was dead on, it just took me a minute to put it all together in my own context:

I was importing the module:

from pyexample.responses import Response

when I should have been importing the class:

from pyexample.responses.Response import Response

Hope this helps someone. (In my defense, it's still pretty early.)

5
votes
from Object import Object

or

From Class_Name import Class_name

If Object is a .py file.

4
votes

You may also do the following in Python 3.6.1

from Object import Object as Parent

and your class definition to:

class Visitor(Parent):
0
votes

In my case where I had the problem I was referring to a module when I tried extending the class.

import logging
class UserdefinedLogging(logging):

If you look at the Documentation Info, you'll see "logging" displayed as module.

In this specific case I had to simply inherit the logging module to create an extra class for the logging.