How self.anchors is not self. declared in the __init__ but it's used in the method?

Question

class Detect(nn.Module):
    stride = None  # strides computed during build
    onnx_dynamic = False  # ONNX export parameter
    export = False  # export mode

    def __init__(self, nc=80, anchors=(), ch=(), inplace=True):  # detection layer
        super().__init__()
        self.nc = nc  # number of classes
        self.no = nc + 5  # number of outputs per anchor
        self.nl = len(anchors)  # number of detection layers
        self.na = len(anchors[0]) // 2  # number of anchors
        self.grid = [torch.zeros(1)] * self.nl  # init grid
        self.anchor_grid = [torch.zeros(1)] * self.nl  # init anchor grid
        self.register_buffer('anchors', torch.tensor(anchors).float().view(self.nl, -1, 2))  # shape(nl,na,2)
        self.m = nn.ModuleList(nn.Conv2d(x, self.no * self.na, 1) for x in ch)  # output conv
        self.inplace = inplace  # use inplace ops (e.g. slice assignment)

    def _make_grid(self, nx=20, ny=20, i=0):
        d = self.anchors[i].device
        t = self.anchors[i].dtype

        shape = 1, self.na, ny, nx, 2  # grid shape
        y, x = torch.arange(ny, device=d, dtype=t), torch.arange(nx, device=d, dtype=t)
        if check_version(torch.__version__, '1.10.0'):  # torch>=1.10.0 meshgrid workaround for torch>=0.7 compatibility
            yv, xv = torch.meshgrid(y, x, indexing='ij')
        else:
            yv, xv = torch.meshgrid(y, x)
        grid = torch.stack((xv, yv), 2).expand(shape) - 0.5  # add grid offset, i.e. y = 2.0 * x - 0.5
        anchor_grid = (self.anchors[i] * self.stride[i]).view((1, self.na, 1, 1, 2)).expand(shape)
        return grid, anchor_grid

In the init there's no self.anchors = anchors but in the _make_grid() method they are using self.anchors. How is it possible? PS I had to drop the forward method otherwise stackoverflow claimed there was too much code

Answer 1

Notice this call in __init__:

self.register_buffer('anchors', torch.tensor(anchors).float().view(self.nl, -1, 2))  # shape(nl,na,2)

Let's see what the PyTorch docs have to say about nn.Module.register_buffer:

register_buffer(name, tensor, persistent=True)
Adds a buffer to the module.

This is typically used to register a buffer that should not to be considered a model parameter. For example, BatchNorm’s running_mean is not a parameter, but is part of the module’s state. Buffers, by default, are persistent and will be saved alongside parameters. This behavior can be changed by setting persistent to False. The only difference between a persistent buffer and a non-persistent buffer is that the latter will not be a part of this module’s state_dict.

Buffers can be accessed as attributes using given names.

Parameters

• name (string) – name of the buffer. The buffer can be accessed from this module using the given name

[...]

So it appears the base class you're inheriting from exposes any registered buffer as an attribute, hence the availability of self.anchors at runtime