numbers — Numeric abstract base classes — Python 3.9.25 documentation

Source code:

Lib/numbers.py

———
The

numbers

module (

PEP 3141

) defines a hierarchy of numeric

abstract base classes

which progressively define more operations. None of the types defined in this module are intended to be instantiated.

class numbers.Number

The root of the numeric hierarchy. If you just want to check if an argument x is a number, without caring what kind, use isinstance(x,Number).

The numeric tower

class numbers.Complex

Subclasses of this type describe complex numbers and include the operations that work on the built-in

complex

type. These are: conversions to

complex

and

bool

,

real

,

imag

, +, -, *, /, **,

abs()

,

conjugate()

, ==, and !=. All except - and != are abstract.

real

Abstract. Retrieves the real component of this number.

imag

Abstract. Retrieves the imaginary component of this number.

abstractmethod conjugate()

Abstract. Returns the complex conjugate. For example, (1+3j).conjugate()==(1-3j).

class numbers.Real

To

Complex

,

Real

adds the operations that work on real numbers.

In short, those are: a conversion to

float

,

math.trunc()

,

round()

,

math.floor()

,

math.ceil()

,

divmod()

, //, %, <, <=, >, and >=.

Real also provides defaults for

complex()

,

real

,

imag

, and

conjugate()

.

class numbers.Rational

Subtypes

Real

and adds

numerator

and

denominator

properties, which should be in lowest terms. With these, it provides a default for

float()

.

numerator

Abstract.

denominator

Abstract.

class numbers.Integral

Subtypes

Rational

and adds a conversion to

int

. Provides defaults for

float()

,

numerator

, and

denominator

. Adds abstract methods for

pow()

with modulus and bit-string operations: <<, >>, &, ^, |, ~.

Notes for type implementors

Implementors should be careful to make equal numbers equal and hash them to the same values. This may be subtle if there are two different extensions of the real numbers. For example,

fractions.Fraction

implements

hash()

as follows:

def__hash__(self):ifself.denominator==1:# Get integers right.returnhash(self.numerator)# Expensive check, but definitely correct.ifself==float(self):returnhash(float(self))else:# Use tuple's hash to avoid a high collision rate on# simple fractions.returnhash((self.numerator,self.denominator))Adding More Numeric ABCs

There are, of course, more possible ABCs for numbers, and this would be a poor hierarchy if it precluded the possibility of adding those. You can add MyFoo between

Complex

and

Real

with:

classMyFoo(Complex):...MyFoo.register(Real)Implementing the arithmetic operations

We want to implement the arithmetic operations so that mixed-mode operations either call an implementation whose author knew about the types of both arguments, or convert both to the nearest built in type and do the operation there. For subtypes of

Integral

, this means that

__add__()

and

__radd__()

should be defined as:

classMyIntegral(Integral):def__add__(self,other):ifisinstance(other,MyIntegral):returndo_my_adding_stuff(self,other)elifisinstance(other,OtherTypeIKnowAbout):returndo_my_other_adding_stuff(self,other)else:returnNotImplementeddef__radd__(self,other):ifisinstance(other,MyIntegral):returndo_my_adding_stuff(other,self)elifisinstance(other,OtherTypeIKnowAbout):returndo_my_other_adding_stuff(other,self)elifisinstance(other,Integral):returnint(other)+int(self)elifisinstance(other,Real):returnfloat(other)+float(self)elifisinstance(other,Complex):returncomplex(other)+complex(self)else:returnNotImplementedThere are 5 different cases for a mixed-type operation on subclasses of

Complex

. I’ll refer to all of the above code that doesn’t refer to MyIntegral and OtherTypeIKnowAbout as “boilerplate”. a will be an instance of A, which is a subtype of

Complex

(a:A<:Complex), and b:B<:Complex. I’ll consider a+b:

If A defines an

__add__()

which accepts b, all is well.

If A falls back to the boilerplate code, and it were to return a value from

__add__()

, we’d miss the possibility that B defines a more intelligent

__radd__()

, so the boilerplate should return

NotImplemented

from

__add__()

. (Or A may not implement

__add__()

at all.)

Then B’s

__radd__()

gets a chance. If it accepts a, all is well.

If it falls back to the boilerplate, there are no more possible methods to try, so this is where the default implementation should live.

If B<:A, Python tries B.__radd__ before A.__add__. This is ok, because it was implemented with knowledge of A, so it can handle those instances before delegating to

Complex

.

If A<:Complex and B<:Real without sharing any other knowledge, then the appropriate shared operation is the one involving the built in

complex

, and both

__radd__()

s land there, so a+b==b+a.

Because most of the operations on any given type will be very similar, it can be useful to define a helper function which generates the forward and reverse instances of any given operator. For example,

fractions.Fraction

uses:

def_operator_fallbacks(monomorphic_operator,fallback_operator):defforward(a,b):ifisinstance(b,(int,Fraction)):returnmonomorphic_operator(a,b)elifisinstance(b,float):returnfallback_operator(float(a),b)elifisinstance(b,complex):returnfallback_operator(complex(a),b)else:returnNotImplementedforward.__name__='__'+fallback_operator.__name__+'__'forward.__doc__=monomorphic_operator.__doc__defreverse(b,a):ifisinstance(a,Rational):# Includes ints.returnmonomorphic_operator(a,b)elifisinstance(a,numbers.Real):returnfallback_operator(float(a),float(b))elifisinstance(a,numbers.Complex):returnfallback_operator(complex(a),complex(b))else:returnNotImplementedreverse.__name__='__r'+fallback_operator.__name__+'__'reverse.__doc__=monomorphic_operator.__doc__returnforward,reversedef_add(a,b):"""a + b"""returnFraction(a.numerator*b.denominator+b.numerator*a.denominator,a.denominator*b.denominator)__add__,__radd__=_operator_fallbacks(_add,operator.add)# ...