What is the purpose of the

The super keyword in Python is used to refer to a parent class. It is commonly used in method resolution order (MRO) when a class is derived from multiple parent classes (i.e., multiple inheritance).

In Python, when a method is called on an object, the interpreter first looks for that method in the object's class. If the method is not found in the class, the interpreter will look for it in the parent class, and so on, until it either finds the method or reaches the end of the inheritance chain. This process is called method resolution order (MRO).

The super keyword allows you to explicitly specify the parent class that you want to call a method on, rather than relying on the default MRO. For example:

class Shape:
    def area(self):
        return 0

class Square(Shape):
    def __init__(self, side_length):
        self.side_length = side_length

    def area(self):
        return self.side_length ** 2

class Cube(Square):
    def volume(self):
        return super().area() * self.side_length

my_cube = Cube(10)
print(my_cube.volume()) # 1000

In this example, the Cube class derives from the Square class, which in turn derives from the Shape class. The Cube class has a volume method that needs to calculate the area of a Square object, so it calls super().area(). This calls the area method of the parent class, Square, instead of the area method of the Shape class, which returns 0 by default.