A Universe Set

[Duncan Booth]

Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp at snipabacken.dyndns.org> wrote:

>>     >> - the wildcard object, which compares equal to everything else
>>
>       [Paul]
>>     Paul> class MatchAny(object):
>>     Paul>     def __cmp__(self,other):
>>     Paul>         return 0
>>
>>     Paul> wild = MatchAny()
> 
> FWIW, I define __eq__ in the one I (infrequently) use.

The advantage to using __eq__ is that it fails to work correctly less often 
than __cmp__. Compare skip's example where comparison against datetime give 
the wrong answer 100% of the time with __cmp__ and 50% of the time with 
__eq__/__ne__:

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

        
>>> wild = MatchAny()
>>> print wild == datetime.datetime.now()
False
>>> print datetime.datetime.now() == wild
False
>>> print wild != datetime.datetime.now()
True
>>> print datetime.datetime.now() != wild
True
>>> class MatchAny(object):
        def __eq__(self,other):
            return True
        def __ne__(self,other):
            return False

        
>>> wild = MatchAny()
>>> print wild == datetime.datetime.now()
True
>>> print datetime.datetime.now() == wild
False
>>> print wild != datetime.datetime.now()
False
>>> print datetime.datetime.now() != wild
True


> 
>>     ...
>>
>> 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):
> ...
> 
> Oh. /Is/ there a way of making it work, then?  If we ignore the
> problems with having such objects in the first place, that is. 
> 
In a contained environment, it can be made to work 'well enough'. So if you 
are writing unit tests and want a wildcard element to include inside data 
structures, AND you can guarantee that you always assert in the order 
expected,actual, then you can probably get away with it. That's assuming 
you remembered to use __eq__/__ne__ rather than __cmp__.

For an object safe to let out in the wild though there isn't any way to 
implement it.