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Mastering the Art of Programming in Python 3

Operator Overloading

Explore how to implement operator overloading in Python to customize behavior for user-defined classes like vectors. Learn to overload unary operators, vector addition, and scalar multiplication with proper handling of edge cases using reflection methods to maintain clean, robust code.

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Python permits operator overloading but within certain constraints:

  • Overloading the operators for built-in types is not allowed.
  • Creating new operators is not allowed.
  • Few operators can’t be overloaded, e.g., is, and, or and not.
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Before moving towards operator overloading, let’s first make a scenario. How about making vectors in Python and overloading the operators for them.

✏️ Note: In case, you want to get an overview of what a vector is, click here.

Let’s start implementing a vector.

Python 3.10.4
class Vector():
    def __init__(self, vector):
        self.vector = vector
    def print(self):
        print(self.vector)
v1 = Vector([1,2])
v1.print()

The above code is the basic implementation of vectors in Python. To make a vector, just send a list of numbers to the Vector(), and you’re good to go. Here we override the function print() for the Vector object, which itself calls the built-in print() to print a vector (list).

Now, we are good to go. Fasten the belts and enjoy the ride of operator overloading.✊

Unary operators

The - operator

Take - as a unary operator and do not confuse it with the binary one. It’s an arithmetic negation operator. For example, if x is 55 ...