Separating __cmp__ from < and > ?

[Ben Wolfson]

On 15 Aug 2000 00:47:27 GMT, aahz at netcom.com (Aahz Maruch) wrote:

>In article <slrn8ph4ba.u2.hzhu at rocket.knowledgetrack.com>,
>Huaiyu Zhu <hzhu at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>>
>>In many situations it is conceptually possible to have a!=b without either
>>a<b or a>b.  Mathematically, this is the case for objects that live in a
>>partially ordered space.
>
>Right.  Problem is, though, that if you have a list of such objects and
>someone does list.sort(), you need to have a way of evaluating the sort
>order.  My suggestion to you is that you define a new set of methods for
>these objects.

But a list.sort() does something even when no __cmp__ method is defined at
all.  Why should it be different when only an __eq__ (or __lt__ or __gt__)
function is defined?

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