Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Python Object-Oriented Python Instant Objects Your first method

rokas stasiulaitis
rokas stasiulaitis
617 Points

Why is the class object not defined when used in a method?

I'm getting "NameError: name 'name' is not defined" when referencing the object and it's attribute, why is this the case?

first_class.py
class Student:
    name = "Rokas"
    def praise(self):
        return "You're doing a great job, {}!".format(name)

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,275 Points

When referring to an instance variable from inside a method, you must prefix the variable with "self.".

rokas stasiulaitis
rokas stasiulaitis
617 Points

Thank you. Just to clarify, I thought name wasn't an instance? From my understanding name is an object and "Rokas" its attribute?

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,275 Points

Here, "name" is an attribute (aka "instance variable") and "Rokas" is its value.