How to avoid overflow errors

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 02:45:10 -0700, James Stroud wrote:

> Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:19:45 -0700, James Stroud wrote:
>> 
>>>> How do I subclass int and/or long so that my class also auto-converts
>>>> only when needed?
>>>>
>>> Use __new__.
>> 
>> The disadvantage of that is that your example code requires me to
>> duplicate my methods in the long version and the int version. It's easy
>> enough to work around that (class factory function) but it just seems
>> all rather untidy...
> 
> 
> The __new__ method is where you implement such decisions. There is no
> "tidier" way for one class "auto-convert" to another class, which is
> what you asked for (it says so right up there ^). So, if you don't like
> the answer, don't ask the question.

How am I supposed to know if I will like the answer until I ask the 
question? If I knew the answer I wouldn't need to ask the question.

Anyway, don't be so cranky and defensive. I was just pointing out that 
having to duplicate code between two different classes was untidy, not 
that __new__ is untidy. I thought that maybe I could inherit from both 
long and int, but Python doesn't like that:

TypeError: Error when calling the metaclass bases
    multiple bases have instance lay-out conflict



> The way to avoid duplicating methods (which is what you are asking for,
> no?) while still allowing your classes to maintain their identities is
> by using mixins:

[snip code]

I've never come to grips with mixins. It's probably high time I do.

Thanks for the example.


-- 
Steven.