Comparison operators called in reverse order for subclasses with no override.

[mdickinson]

BPO	22052
Nosy	@mdickinson, @bitdancer, @vadmium, @serhiy-storchaka

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2020-05-31.13:19:14.369>
created_at = <Date 2014-07-23.21:03:30.071>
labels = ['docs']
title = 'Comparison operators called in reverse order for subclasses with no override.'
updated_at = <Date 2020-05-31.13:19:14.368>
user = 'https://github.com/mdickinson'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2020-05-31.13:19:14.368>
actor = 'serhiy.storchaka'
assignee = 'docs@python'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2020-05-31.13:19:14.369>
closer = 'serhiy.storchaka'
components = ['Documentation']
creation = <Date 2014-07-23.21:03:30.071>
creator = 'mark.dickinson'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 22052
keywords = []
message_count = 10.0
messages = ['223778', '223789', '223812', '223838', '233836', '248163', '251397', '251410', '251411', '370440']
nosy_count = 5.0
nosy_names = ['mark.dickinson', 'r.david.murray', 'docs@python', 'martin.panter', 'serhiy.storchaka']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue22052'
versions = ['Python 2.7']

[mdickinson]

As reported in a StackOverflow question [1]: the order in which the special comparison methods are called seems to be contradictory to the docs [2]. In the following snippet, __eq__ is called with reversed operands first:

>>> class A:
...     def __eq__(self, other):
...         print(type(self), type(other))
...         return True
... 
>>> class B(A):
...     pass
... 
>>> A() == B()
<class '__main__.B'> <class '__main__.A'>
True

However, the docs note that:

"""If the right operand’s type is a subclass of the left operand’s type and that subclass provides the reflected method for the operation, this method will be called before the left operand’s non-reflected method. This behavior allows subclasses to override their ancestors’ operations."""

... which suggests that this reversal should only happen when the subclass B *overrides* A's definition of __eq__ (and indeed that's the usual behaviour for arithmetic operations like __add__).

Looking more closely, that statement in the docs is in the 'numeric-types' section, so it's not clear that its rules should apply to the comparison operators. But either way, some doc clarification could be useful.

[1] http://stackoverflow.com/q/24919375/270986
[2] https://docs.python.org/3.5/reference/datamodel.html#emulating-numeric-types

[bitdancer]

"the subclass provides" doesn't actually imply anything about overriding, I think. For __eq__, though, that means that *every* class "provides" it. Indeed, I've always thought of the rule as "the subclass goes first" with no qualification, but that's only true for __eq__.

It looks like the "subclass goes first" note is missing from the __eq__ section.

But see bpo-21408. I find it hard to reason about this algorithm, so I could be completely wrong :)

[mdickinson]

"the subclass provides" doesn't actually imply anything about overriding, I think.

Yes, that was the thrust of one of the SO answers. Unfortunately, that explanation doesn't work for arithmetic operators, though: there an explicit override is necessary. Here's another example, partly to get away from the extra complication of __eq__ being its own inverse. After:

    class A(object):
        def __lt__(self, other): return True
        def __gt__(self, other): return False
        def __add__(self, other): return 1729
        def __radd__(self, other): return 42

    class B(A): pass

we get:

    >>> A() + B()
    1729
    >>> A() < B()
    False

So the addition is calling the usual __add__ method first (the special exception in the docs doesn't apply: while B *is* a subclass of A, it doesn't *override* A's __radd__ method). But the comparison is (surprisingly) calling the __gt__ method first.

So we've got two different rules being followed: one for arithmetic operators, and a different one for comparisons.

This isn't a big deal behaviour-wise: I'm certainly not advocating a behaviour change here. But it would be nice to document it.

[bitdancer]

Ah yes. I remember there being a discussion somewhere about the differences between comparison operator inverses and the arithmetic 'r' methods, but I can't find it at the moment. I *thought* there was a full discussion of the logic involved in these cases, but I can't find that either. We need one somewhere that we can crosslink to if it doesn't already exist.

[vadmium]

I have included some rules about the priority for calling reflected operator methods in my patch to bpo-4395

[vadmium]

My patch was committed for Python 3.4+. The priority of the comparator methods is now documented at the end of <https://docs.python.org/dev/reference/datamodel.html#richcmpfuncs\>. Perhaps all that is left to do here is to apply similar changes to the Python 2 documentation.

[vadmium]

Does anyone know enough about Python 2 to propose a fix? I don’t know enough about object classes versus “instance” classes, and potential interference of the __cmp__() method. In Python 2 the order seems to depend on the class type:

(<main.A instance at 0x7f730d37f5f0>, <main.B instance at 0x7f730d37f518>)
(<main.B object at 0x7f730d37dc10>, <main.A object at 0x7f730d37d110>)

Or perhaps we should just close this now and forget about Python 2 ;)

[mdickinson]

For Python 2, I think the most we should do is document the behaviour somewhere; changing it in a bugfix release seems both unnecessary and potentially risky.

[mdickinson]

the most we should do is document the behaviour somewhere

And indeed, perhaps this issue counts as sufficient documentation...

[serhiy-storchaka]

Python 2.7 is no longer supported.