[python] Calling a class function inside of __init__

How about:

class MyClass(object):
    def __init__(self, filename):
        self.filename = filename 
        self.stats = parse_file(filename)

def parse_file(filename):
    #do some parsing
    return results_from_parse

By the way, if you have variables named stat1, stat2, etc., the situation is begging for a tuple: stats = (...).

So let parse_file return a tuple, and store the tuple in self.stats.

Then, for example, you can access what used to be called stat3 with self.stats[2].