title: How can I get the type of a class without instantiating it in Python?
body: <p>Given an object it is easy to get the object type in python:</p>
  
  <pre><code>obj = SomeClass()
  t = type(obj)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How can I do this without first creating an instance of the class?</p>
  
  <p>Background: Once you have the type you easily can create instances of that type. Using this mechanism I want to pass a type to an object which will later create instances of that type. It would be very reasonable not to have to create an object first which will immediately be thrown away again.</p>