Can you explain the purpose of the __init__ method in a class?

The __init__ method in Python is a class constructor that is automatically called when a new object of this class is created. Its main task is to initialize the object's attributes by setting initial values.

Example:

class Person:
    def __init__(self, name, age):
        self.name = name
        self.age = age

p = Person("Ivan", 30)
print(p.name)  # Ivan
print(p.age)   # 30

Here, __init__ takes parameters name and age and stores them in the object's attributes self.