Overloading the tilde operator?

[James Stroud]

Peter Otten wrote:
> Chris wrote:
> 
> 
>>I am trying to overload the __invert__ operator (~) such that
>>it can take a second argument, other than
>>self, so that I can express:
>>
>>x ~ y
>>
>>by using:
>>
>>def __invert__(self, other): <do something>
>>
>>for example. Is this possible?
> 
> 
> No, you will get a syntax error before python even look up the names:
> 
> 
>>>>x
> 
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
> NameError: name 'x' is not defined
> 
>>>>x ~ x
> 
>   File "<stdin>", line 1
>     x ~ x
>       ^
> SyntaxError: invalid syntax
> 
> Peter

Seems an arbitrary limitation. Consider

   - x

and

   x - y

Which is inconsistent with limiting ~ to a unary operation.

James