__init__ of Models not overrideable

[Armin Ronacher]

Apparently django is calling __init__ for models created from database data. This makes it impossible to override the constructor that has a different signature.

It would make more sense if the database API is creating a verbatim instance of the class using object.__new__(Model) and updating the attributes. It would also be possible to add a construct method that is called when a model is assembled from database data.

I can provide a patch if wanted.

[Malcolm Tredinnick]

Django is using the initialisation function on a class to create instances of that class. That's what __init__ is for. You can easily override it, but you have to be able to accept the way a Model class is called, which means accepting things matching the current signature. That's true whenever you subclass something: if you pass it to something that expects the parent, you have to match the parent's initialisation interface.