Python Delete Property

Summary: in this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use the property() class to delete the property of an object.

To create a property of a class, you use the @property decorator. Underhood, the @property decorator uses the property class that has three methods: setter, getter, and deleter.

By using the deleter, you can delete a property from an object. Notice that the deleter() method deletes a property of an object, not a class.

The following defines the Person class with the name property:

from pprint import pprint


class Person:
    def __init__(self, name):
        self._name = name

    @property
    def name(self):
        return self._name

    @name.setter
    def name(self, value):
        if value.strip() == '':
            raise ValueError('name cannot be empty')
        self._name = value

    @name.deleter
    def name(self):
        del self._nameCode language: Python (python)

In the Person class, we use the @name.deleter decorator. Inside the deleter, we use the del keyword to delete the _name attribute of the Person instance.

The following shows the __dict__ of the Person class:

pprint(Person.__dict__)Code language: Python (python)

Output:

mappingproxy({'__dict__': <attribute '__dict__' of 'Person' objects>,
              '__doc__': None,
              '__init__': <function Person.__init__ at 0x000001DC41D62670>,
              '__module__': '__main__',
              '__weakref__': <attribute '__weakref__' of 'Person' objects>,
              'name': <property object at 0x000001DC41C89130>})Code language: Python (python)

The Person.__dict__ class has the name variable. The following creates a new instance of the Person class:

person = Person('John')Code language: Python (python)

The person.__dict__ has the _name attribute:

pprint(person.__dict__)Code language: Python (python)

Output:

{'_name': 'John'}Code language: Python (python)

The following uses the del keyword to delete the name property:

del person.nameCode language: Python (python)

Internally, Python will execute the deleter method that deletes the _name attribute from the person object. The person.__dict__ will be empty like this:

{}Code language: Python (python)

And if you attempt to access name property again, you’ll get an error:

print(person.name)Code language: Python (python)

Error:

AttributeError: 'Person' object has no attribute '_name'Code language: Python (python)

Summary

• Use the deleter decorator to delete a property of an instance of a class.