Answer by ninjagecko for What is the purpose of the word 'self', in Python?

I will demonstrate with code that does not use classes:

def state_init(state):
    state['field'] = 'init'

def state_add(state, x):
    state['field'] += x

def state_mult(state, x):
    state['field'] *= x

def state_getField(state):
    return state['field']

myself = {}
state_init(myself)
state_add(myself, 'added')
state_mult(myself, 2)

print( state_getField(myself) )
#--> 'initaddedinitadded'

Classes are just a way to avoid passing in this "state" thing all the time (and other nice things like initializing, class composition, the rarely-needed metaclasses, and supporting custom methods to override operators).

Now let's demonstrate the above code using the built-in python class machinery, to show how it's basically the same thing.

class State(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.field = 'init'
    def add(self, x):
        self.field += x
    def mult(self, x):
        self.field *= x

s = State()
s.add('added')    # self is implicitly passed in
s.mult(2)         # self is implicitly passed in
print( s.field )

[migrated my answer from duplicate closed question]