Dataclass Class of 'Dataclass Class'es Python 3.8

[mrkgoh]

@egges , I follow your video avidly. Thanks ! Have a design related question :

I have a dataclass of a single class object 'AStock' as such:

@dataclass
class AStock:
    
    code_: Union[str, int]
    force_update_: bool = False
    ticker_: str = field(init=False)
    symbol_: str = field(init=False)
    name_: str = field(init=False)
    sector_: str = field(init=False)
    subsector_: str = field(init=False)
    
    @exception(logger)
    def __post_init__(self) -> None:
        try:
            self.code_ = str(self.code_).zfill(4)
            self.ticker_ = indexer(code=self.code_, arg='ticker')
            self.symbol_ = indexer(code=self.code_, arg='symbol')
            self.name_ = indexer(code=self.code_, arg='full_name')
            self.sector_ = indexer(code=self.code_, arg='sector')
            self.subsector_ = indexer(code=self.code_, arg='subsector')

        except NoStockFound:
            raise
        except Exception as e:
            raise StockException(stock=self) from e

What I want to achieve is to create a class object that would initialize a single stock object or a collection of stock objects. So I did a 'Stocks' and a 'Stock' object.

'Stocks' here initializes a group of 'AStock' objects.

@dataclass
class Stocks:
    
    code_: List[str]
    force_update_: bool = False
    ticker_: str = field(init=False)
    symbol_: str = field(init=False)
    name_: str = field(init=False)
    sector_: str = field(init=False)
    subsector_: str = field(init=False)
    
    @exception(logger)
    def __post_init__(self) -> None:
        self.ticker_ = [indexer(code, arg='ticker') for code in self.code_]
        self.symbol_ = [indexer(code, arg='symbol') for code in self.code_]
        self.name_ = [indexer(code, arg='full_name') for code in self.code_]
        self.sector_ = [indexer(code, arg='sector') for code in self.code_]
        self.subsector_ = [indexer(code, arg='subsector') for code in self.code_]
    
    def __repr__(self) -> str:
        return ', '.join([f'{i[0]}:{i[1]}' for i in list(zip(self.code_, self.ticker_))])
    
    def __str__(self) -> str:
        return ', '.join([f'{i[0]}:{i[1]}' for i in list(zip(self.code_, self.ticker_))])

and this 'Stock' object here is to handle the creation of 'AStock' or 'Stocks' object.

@dataclass
class Stock:
    code: Union[str, int, List[str]]
    force_update: bool = False
    
    @exception(logger)
    def __new__(cls, code, force_update: bool = False):
        if type(code) in [str, int]:
            return AStock(code, force_update)
        
        elif type(code) in [list]:
            return Stocks(code, force_update)
        
        else:
            raise ValueError('Not a valid stock code')

So for example:
If Stock(['1203', '1232']) will create Stocks object and Stock('1203') will create a AStock object. Just by providing arguments as a List or String it could detect whether to create AStock for single stock or Stocks for multiple stocks.

However, this is pretty 'hacky' way of using __new__ to return an either AStock object or Stocks object. Is there a more elegant way of doing this?