Missing argument to super()

super() enables you to access the methods and members of a parent class without referring to the parent class by name. For a single inheritance situation the first argument to super() should be the name of the current child class calling super(), and the second argument should be self, that is, a reference to the current object calling super().

Note

This error is only raised for Python versions 2.x which support new-style classes.

Anti-pattern

The author of the code below provides no arguments for the child class’ call to super(). Python raises a TypeError at runtime because it expects at least 1 argument for super().

class Rectangle(object):
    def __init__(self, width, height):
        self.width = width
        self.height = height
        self.area = width * height

class Square(Rectangle):
    def __init__(self, length):
        # no arguments provided to super()
        super().__init__(length, length)

s = Square(5)
print(s.area)  # does not execute

Best practice

Insert name of child class as first argument to super()

In the modified code below the author has fixed the call to super() so that the name of the child class which is calling super() (Square in this case) is the first argument to the method, and a reference to the object calling super() is the second argument.

class Rectangle(object):
    def __init__(self, width, height):
        self.width = width
        self.height = height
        self.area = width * height

class Square(Rectangle):
    def __init__(self, length):
        # super() executes fine now
        super(Square, self).__init__(length, length)

s = Square(5)
print(s.area)  # 25