A singleton is a pattern that restricts the instantiation of a class to one instance/object. For more info on python singleton design patterns, see here.
class SingletonType(type):
def __call__(cls, *args, **kwargs):
try:
return cls.__instance
except AttributeError:
cls.__instance = super(SingletonType, cls).__call__(*args, **kwargs)
return cls.__instance
class MySingleton(object):
__metaclass__ = SingletonType
class MySingleton(metaclass=SingletonType):
pass
MySingleton() is MySingleton() # True, only one instantiation occurs