Dataclasses is a python standard library module for creating dataclasses. Dataclasses are just syntactically simpler class definitions, typically this is used when you have a class that is used to store many attributes to save you from having to type out __init__() and __repr__() methods for your classes.
Consider the example below:
from dataclasses import dataclass # import dataclass method from module
@dataclass # Decorate class to let python know this is a dataclass
class user:
name: str
age: int
birthday: str
family_names: list[str]
address: str
job_title: str
country_of_birth: str
And the examples equivalent code without using dataclasses:
class user:
def __init__(self, name, age, birthday, family_names, address, job_title, country_of_birth):
self.name = name
self.age = age
self.birthday = birthday
self.family_names = family_names
self.address = address
self.job_title = job_title
self.country_of_birth = country_of_birth
def __repr__(self):
return f"user(name='{self.name}', age={self.age}, birthday = '{self.birthday}',family_names = '{self.family_names}', address='{self.address}', job_title='{self.job_title}', country_of_birth='{self.country_of_birth}' )"
13 lines vs 8, not to mention the fact that if any of the variables change, or the class is subclassed the __repr__ method will need to be recreated from scratch (including the hardcoded single quotes around strings to indicate their types).