the root class object all classes are subclassedeither directly or indirectly from the root class object the object class defines set of methods with default implementations that are inherited by all classes derived from object the list of attributes defined for the object class can be seen by printing out the list returned by the built-in dir(functionprintdirobject this call returns ['__class__','__delattr__','__doc__','__getattribute__','__hash__','__init__','__new__',__reduce__''__reduce_ex__','__repr__','__setattr__','__str__'we can also examine the attribute list available for the object class by printing out the contents of its dict attribute by printobject __dict__ this will print out both the attribute names and their bindings purdue university