Executing code in __init__

Question

I'm trying to untar xz/bx2/gz files in the init section of my class. I'm using the following code :

class myClass(object):
def __init__(self, *args):
 for i in args:
 try:
 f = tarfile.open(i)
 print("Extracting ", i)
 f.extractall()
 f.close()
 except tarfile.ReadError:
 print("File not a tarball, or any of .xz/.bz2/.gz archives.")
 exit()
if __name__ == "__main__":
 <???>

The only problem here is, I'm not sure what to call after "main", in order to initialize and run the init method. I've just started out, and am a bit unclear.

If I'm to write a function named unpack() which does the untarring rather than putting it under init, i know i can do something like :

if __name__ == "__main__":
 start = myClass()
 start.unpack()

Since I want to do the unpacking in init itself, how would I do it in this case ?

Edit:

Sorry in case I'm not clear, I'm trying to run this script from the command line as :

# python script.py file1.tar.bz2 file2.tar.bz2 file3.tar.bz2

So the *args should be populated with the file names, and hence the code to extract it should run, atleast from what I know.

Thank you,

• l4mpi: You're not passing any arguments to __init__ or rather to the myClass() call so the loop never executes... what do you expect a loop over an empty list to do?
• l4mpi: Okay, regarding the edit - go read this and this. You seem to have a vague idea what you're doing but at the same time don't grasp some very basic concepts...
• Daniel Roseman: There is absolutely no need to make this a class.

Answer 1

You just call myClass() :

if __name__ == "__main__":
 start = myClass(sys.argv)

• Blckknght: I think this is the answer the OP wanted, but I think it should probably be said that doing your work in the __init__ method is probably a bad idea. Either move it to a method, or just make a function that does the work directly (classes are not necessary for every problem in Python).
• vimal: Yes, i understand Classes are not necessary. This was just a part of learning.. I have it working without classes..