FRESH

Hacker News

Overloaded Overloading

34 points by redsymbol

by reichstein

2 subcomments

So the `+` is not _overloaded_, the `+` syntax is a shorthand for calling a method named `__add__` on the value of the first operand, with the value of the second operand as an argument . That is: `e1 + e2` is syntactic sugar for `e1.__add__(e2)`, no more and no less.
It's not "operator overloading" any more than two _different_ classes having a `length` property is "length overloading".
Using the term "operator overloading" to begin with is the error here.

by rf15

2 subcomments

Good introduction to the space in Python (although a lot of languages have it, and just as many disallow it). I'm still on the fence regarding how useful or confusing it is. without (or even with) good variable names, "a + b" is an absolute mystery, especially when handling objects that come from classes you have no detailed internal understanding of.

by faresahmed

0 subcomment

Another comment already explains that this is regular method overriding in Python. Surely, some languages call user-defined operators 'Operator overloading' (e.g. C#) but the mechanism which Python uses (an `object` base class) IS overriding.
As to overloading as in multiple signatures (No types here!) for the same method name, it is not possible in the regular sense in Python since an object is more or less a dictionary of names. However, the dynamicity of the language will happily allow you to simulate it with YOUR own rules for disambiguation if you like. In practice, you'd 1. Don't 2. *args, **kwargs, Branches of is None and isinstance, etc.

by hnd9q09qk4

1 subcomments