A Universe Set

[skip at pobox.com]

    >> - the wildcard object, which compares equal to everything else

    Paul> class MatchAny(object):
    Paul>     def __cmp__(self,other):
    Paul>         return 0

    Paul> wild = MatchAny()

    ...

You're at the mercy of the comparison machinery implemented by individual
classes.  Executing this script (using any of Python 2.3 through what's
currently in the SVN repository):

    import datetime

    class MatchAny(object):
        def __cmp__(self,other):
            return 0

    wild = MatchAny()

    print wild == datetime.datetime.now()
    print datetime.datetime.now() == wild
    print wild != datetime.datetime.now()
    print datetime.datetime.now() != wild

yields

    False
    False
    True
    True

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