Resolving metaclass conflicts

I need to create a class that uses a different base class depending on some condition. With some classes I get the infamous:

TypeError: metaclass conflict: the metaclass of a derived class must be a (non-strict) subclass of the metaclasses of all its bases

One example is sqlite3, here is a short example you can even use in the interpreter:

>>> import sqlite3
>>> x = type('x', (sqlite3,), {})
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: metaclass conflict: the metaclass of a derived class must be a (non-strict) subclass of the metaclasses of all its bases

Instead of using the recipe as mentioned by jdi, you can directly use:

class M_C(M_A, M_B):
    pass

class C(A, B):
    __metaclass__ = M_C

Your example using sqlite3 is invalid because it is a module and not a class. I have also encountered this issue.

Heres your problem: The base class has a metaclass that is not the same type as the subclass. That is why you get a TypeError.

I used a variation of this activestate snippet using noconflict.py. The snippet needs to be reworked as it is not python 3.x compatible. Regardless, it should give you a general idea.

Problem snippet

class M_A(type):
    pass
class M_B(type):
    pass
class A(object):
    __metaclass__=M_A
class B(object):
    __metaclass__=M_B
class C(A,B):
    pass

#Traceback (most recent call last):
#  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
#TypeError: metaclass conflict: the metaclass of a derived class must be a (non-strict) subclass #of the metaclasses of all its bases

Solution snippet

from noconflict import classmaker
class C(A,B):
    __metaclass__=classmaker()

print C
#<class 'C'>

The code recipe properly resolves the metaclasses for you.

This also happens when you try to inherit from a function and not a class.

Eg.

def function():
    pass

class MyClass(function):
    pass

To use the pattern described by @michael, but with both Python 2 and 3 compatibility (using the six library):

from six import with_metaclass

class M_C(M_A, M_B):
    pass

class C(with_metaclass(M_C, A, B)):
    # implement your class here

As far as I understood from the previous answers the only things we usually have to do manually are:

class M_A(type): pass
class M_B(type): pass
class A(metaclass=M_A): pass
class B(metaclass=M_B): pass

class M_C(M_A, M_B): pass
class C:(A, B, metaclass=M_C): pass

But we can automate the last two lines now by:

def metaclass_resolver(*classes):
    metaclass = tuple(set(type(cls) for cls in classes))
    metaclass = metaclass[0] if len(metaclass)==1 \
                else type("_".join(mcls.__name__ for mcls in metaclass), metaclass, {})   # class M_C
    return metaclass("_".join(cls.__name__ for cls in classes), classes, {})              # class C

class C(metaclass_resolver(A, B)): pass

Since we do not use any version-specific metaclass syntax this metaclass_resolver works with Python 2 as well as Python 3.

I like doing:

class mBase1(type):
    ...

class mBase2(type):
    ...

class Base1(metaclass=mBase1):
    ...

class Base2(metaclass=mBase2):
    ...

class mChild(type(Base1), type(Base2)):
    pass

class Child(Base1, Base2, metaclass=mChild):
    ...

That way if something changes with the metaclass of the bases you don't have to worry about it. type() will take care of it.