[modeller_usage] code and logic question

Hi,

I have a question concerning code semantics. To me it seems to address the heart of similar questions I've read on the list, too.

If a derived class (see http://www.salilab.org/modeller/manual/node27.html for instance) has a method defining additional restraints, how, having no conventional __init__-method of the base class called, do I know in advance that a method is called? I never saw something like

a.special_restraints(aln)

in the examples. (BTW, where does 'aln' come from? special_restraints() requires this parameter, but it does not get defined in the code.)

My scripts follow the example code, but I've also run into problems occasionally, not knowing how I can actually play with the examples sticking to pythonic coding.

So, my question(s) can be summarized as: Is there any node in the manual describing the MODELLER-Python interface, particularly a list of methods invoked upon deriving a class? If not, would you accept this as a 'documentation request'? (If this is documented somewhere already, please excuse my ignorance.)

Thanks Christian