Python Is there a shutdown equivalent to __init__ ()

Question

I use __init__() functions a lot in Python classes to set up things when a class is first called.

Is there an equivalent function that is called when a script is shutting down?

Answer 1

There is the __del__ method which is called when an object is finalized. However, python doesn't guarantee that __del__ will actually be called on objects when the interpreter exits.

There are a few alternatives:

• atexit.register -- Here you can register a function to run when your script terminates
• create a context manager and use the with statement. Then your context manager's __exit__ method will be called unconditionally when you leave the context.

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both of these options would fail if you did something really nasty to exit your program (e.g. somehow causing a segmentation fault or exiting via os._exit)