I have a simple class that helps with mathematical operations on vectors (i.e. lists of numbers). My Vector can be multiplied by other instances of Vector or a scalar (float or int).
In other, more strongly typed, languages I would create a method to multiply two vectors and a separate method to multiply a vector by and int/float. I'm still pretty new to Python and am not sure how I would implement this. The only way I can think of doing it is override __mul__() and test the incoming parameter:
class Vector(object):
...
def __mul__(self, rhs):
if isinstance(rhs, Vector):
...
if isinstance(rhs, int) or isinstance(rhs, float):
...
Even if I do it that way I would be forced to multiply a Vector by a scalar like this:
v = Vector([1,2,3])
result = v * 7
What if I wanted to reverse the order of the operands in the multiplication?
result = 7 * v
What is the right way to do that in Python?
解决方案
You also need to implement __rmul__. When the initial call to int.__mul__(7, v) fails, Python will next try type(v).__rmul__(v, 7).
def __rmul__(self, lhs):
return self * lhs # Effectively, turn 7 * v into v * 7
As Rawing points out, you could simply write __rmul__ = __mul__ for this definition. __rmul__ exists to allow for non-commutative multiplication where simply deferring to __mul__ with the operands reversed isn't sufficient.
For instance, if you were writing a Matrix class and wanted to support multiplication by a nested list, e.g.,
m = Matrix(...) # Some 2 x 2 matrix
n = [[1, 2], [3,4]]
p = n * m
Here, the list class wouldn't know how to multiple a list by a Matrix instance, so when list.__mul__(n, m) fails, Python would next try Matrix.__rmul__(m, n). However, n * m and m * n are two different results in general, so Matrix.__rmul__(m, n) != Matrix.__mul__(m, n); __rmul__ has to do a little extra work to generate the right answer.