Python 2.2 quick reference

Defines the behavior of the abs() function when applied to an object of your class.

Defines the behavior of this class for self+other.

Defines the behavior of self&other.

Compares two values, self and other, to see which way they should be ordered. Return a negative integer if self should come first; return a positive integer if the other value should come first; and return an integer 0 if they are considered equal.

Defines the behavior of the builtin function complex(), to convert self to a complex value.

You can use this special method to define how the “in” and “not in” operators work to test whether an object x is a member of self. The method returns true if x is in self, false otherwise.

Destructor: this method is called when the instance is about to be destroyed because there are no more references to it.

Called to delete self[key]. Raise IndexError if the key is not valid.

Defines the behavior of self/other.

Defines the behavior of divmod(self,other).

Defines the behavior of the builtin float() function; should return a float value.

Get self's attribute whose name is the string name. If the name is not a legal attribute name, this method should raise AttributeError. This method is called only if the object doesn't have a regular attribute by the given name.

Called on access to self[key]. Raise IndexError if the key is not valid.

Defines the behavior of the builtin int() function; should return a value of type int.

Defines the behavior of the unary ~ operator.

If self is a container object, return an iterator that iterates over all the items in that object. See iterators below. For mapping objects, the iterator should iterate over all the keys.

Defines the behavior of the builtin hex() function; should return a string of hexadecimal characters.

Return the length of self as a nonnegative integer.

Defines the behavior of the builtin long() function.

Defines the behavior of self<<other.

Defines the behavior of self%other.

Defines the behavior of self*other.

Implements the unary negate operator -self.

Called to test an object's truth value. Return 1 for true, 0 for false. If you don't define this method, Python tries computing the length with the .__len__() method; zero length is considered false and all other values true.

Defines the behavior of the builtin oct() function; should return a string of octal characters.

Defines the behavior of self|other.

Defines the behavior of the exponentiation operator self**other. It also implements the built-in function pow(), which takes an optional third argument modulo; see that function for details about the third argument..

Defines the behavior of self>>other.

Called for assignments of the form

O.name = value

If your method needs to store a value in the instance, don't just assign a value, because that will force .__setattr__() to be called again, creating an infinite loop. Instead, use an assignment of the form

O.__dict__[name] = value

Called for assignments to self[key].

Returns self in the form of a string. The built-in function str() and the print statement use this method if it is defined.

Defines the behavior of self-other.

Defines the behavior of self^other.