Data Structures and Algorithms with Object-Oriented Design Patterns in Python

Objects and Types

An object is a programming language abstraction that represents a storage location. A Python object has the following attributes:

type: The type of an object determines the set of values that the object can have and the set of operations that can be performed on that object.
value: The value of an object is the content of the memory location(s) occupied by that variable. How the contents of the memory locations are interpreted is determined by the type of the variable.
lifetime: The lifetime of an object is the interval of time in the execution of a Python program during which the object is said to exist.

Python defines an extensive type hierarchy. This hierarchy includes the numeric types (such as int, float and complex), sequences (such as tuple and list), functions (type function), classes and methods (types classobj and instancemethod), and and instances of classes (type instance).