Can you initialize a variable inside the parameters of __init__()?

I was just wondering whether I’m able to initialize a variable inside the parameter of init()?

This is my code:

def __init__ (self, position = 0, memory = 0) :
        self.position = position
        self.memory = memory

So the question really is, is it possible to do position = 0 inside the init() function.

>Solution :

Yes, but then you’ll be overwriting any value of position passed as an argument. The default-value is only used if no argument is given.

You can check if the argument has a value that indicates some other value should be used instead (this is typically done with None, usually when you want the default to be a fresh instance of a mutable value).

def __init__(self, position=None, memory=0):
    if position is None:
        position = 0
    self.position = position
    self.memory = memory