[Python-Dev] Range __contains__ and objects with __index__ methods

[Mark Dickinson]

Bah.  I meant to send this to the list.  (I suspect that Nick also
meant to send his reply to the list.)

On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 12:43 PM, Mark Dickinson <dickinsm at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 12:23 PM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The symmetry only breaks for a class that breaks the invariant:
>>
>>   x == operator.index(x)
>>
>> Failing to guarantee that invariant seems to violate the whole spirit
>> of operator.index().
>
> Agreed. (Though one also needs transitivity, symmetry, etc., of
> equality, since what we really need is that x == y is interchangeable
> with operator.index(x) == y.)
>
>> Perhaps this is what we should be documenting as
>> the true distinguishing feature between the intended semantics of
>> __index__ and the semantics of __int__?
>
> Hmm.  Perhaps.  For me, this doesn't fully capture the intent of
> __index__, though.
>
> So the semantics (ignoring performance issues for now) would become:
>
> def range_contains(self, x)
>    try:
>        i = operator.index(x)
>    except TypeError:
>        i = x
>    return any(i == y for y in self)
>
> ?
>
> This change sounds fine to me;  it would be good to have a
> documentation note somewhere indicating that the range implementation
> assumes x == index(x), though.  This might belong in the range
> documentation, or perhaps the __index__ method documentation could
> indicate that some builtins might have unpredictable behaviour if the
> identity is violated.
>
> Mark
>