[Python-Dev] Why not support user defined operator overloading ? (original) (raw)

Stephen J. Turnbull stephen at xemacs.org
Sun Sep 29 19:03:57 CEST 2013

张佩佩 writes:

If we can overloading these operators, why we can't overloading other operators? (like .* often used in matrix, U in set operation)

AIUI, it's considered unpythonic. Operators are considered to be part of the syntax of Python, unlike Haskell, where infix syntax can be used for any function, and operators can be called via function syntax. (The latter is true in Python as well, but it is very bad form to do that, sufficiently verbose that it is hardly tempting, and it can easily fail because Python operators are polymorphic, but the implementations via class methods are not.)

I'm sure it also simplifies parsing.

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