Op 2005-10-20, Mikael Olofsson schreef <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Antoon Pardon wrote:
>> Op 2005-10-20, Duncan Booth schreef <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>
>>>Antoon Pardon wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>The problem now is that the cmp protocol has no way to
>>>>indicate two objects are incomparable, they are not
>>>>equal but neither is one less or greater than the other.
>>>
>>>If that is the case then you implement __eq__ and __ne__ to return
>>>True/False and make cmp throw an exception. I don't see any need to extend
>>>the cmp protocol.
>>
>>
>> That is not sufficient. There are domains where an order exists, but not
>> a total order. So for some couples of elements it is possible to say
>> one is less than the other, but not for all such couples.
>>
>> Your solution wouldn't allow for such a case.
>
> Wouldn't the full power of rich comparisons be enough? See section 3.3.1
> in Python Reference Manual:
>
> http://www.python.org/doc/2.4.2/ref/customization.html
>
> See methods __lt__, __le__, __eq__, __ne__, __gt__, __ge__.
Sure, but it would also be rather cumbersome. It is not uncommon
that a general compare function which could give you one of
four results: one_less_two, one_equal_two, one_greater_two or
one_unequal_two, wouldn't differ much from each of those six
comparison methods. So you either write about six times the
same code or you have to do something like the following:
class partial_order:
def __compare(self, other):
...
return ...
def __lt__(self, other):
return self.__compare(other) == one_less_two
def __le__(self, other):
return self.__compare(other) in [one_less_two, one_equal_two]
def __eq__(self, other):
return self.__compare(other) == one_equal_two
def __ne__(self, other):
return self.__compare(other) == one_unequal_two
def __gt__(self, other):
return self.__compare(other) == one_greater_two
def __ge__(self, other):
return self.__compare(other) in [one_greater_two, one_equale_two]
And then you still wouldn't get a usefull result from:
delta = cmp(e1, e2)
--
Antoon Pardon
--
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