Python list of objects sharing reference to other objects?

Question

I have the following code, which on first glance should produce 10 Jobs with 3 Tasks each.

class Job:
    id = None
    tasks = {}

class Task:
    id = None

cnt = 0
jobs = []
for i in range(0, 10):
    job = Job()
    job.id = i

    for ii in range(0, 3):
        task = Task()    
        task.id = cnt
        job.tasks[task.id] = task
        cnt += 1

    jobs.append(job)

for job in jobs:
    print("job {}, tasks: {}".format(job.id, job.tasks.keys()))

The result is somehow surprising - we have 30 Tasks shared by each Job:

job 0, tasks: dict_keys([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29])
job 1, tasks: dict_keys([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29])
job 2, tasks: dict_keys([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29])
job 3, tasks: dict_keys([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29])
job 4, tasks: dict_keys([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29])
job 5, tasks: dict_keys([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29])
job 6, tasks: dict_keys([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29])
job 7, tasks: dict_keys([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29])
job 8, tasks: dict_keys([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29])
job 9, tasks: dict_keys([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29])

Can someone explain what is going on in here?

UPDATE tasks is a class variable shared by all the instances.

loki · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-25 04:36:01Z

1

In your Job class you need to do this

class Job:
    id = None
    def __init__(self):
        self.tasks = {}

tasks is in your class and each time you are appending to the class tasks which is shared by all the instances.

answered Oct 25, 2019 at 4:36

loki

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