## 9.3.2 Class objects

Class objects support two kinds of operations: attribute references and instantiation.

Attribute references use the standard syntax used for all attribute references in Python: `obj.name`. Valid attribute names are all the names that were in the class's name space when the class object was created. So, if the class definition looked like this:

        class MyClass:
            "A simple example class"
            i = 12345
            def f(x):
                return 'hello world'

then `MyClass.i` and `MyClass.f` are valid attribute references, returning an integer and a function object, respectively. Class attributes can also be assigned to, so you can change the value of `MyClass.i` by assignment. `__doc__` is also a valid attribute that's read-only, returning the docstring belonging to the class: `"A simple example class"`).

Class instantiation uses function notation. Just pretend that the class object is a parameterless function that returns a new instance of the class. For example, (assuming the above class):

        x = MyClass()

creates a new instance of the class and assigns this object to the local variable `x`.