Sharan Basappa <sharan.basa...@gmail.com> writes: > Is there a difference between functions and methods in Python.
Python's documentation includes a useful Glossary. See the terms <URL:https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-method> <URL:https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-function>. Every method is a function; but there are functions that are not methods. What distinguishes a method is that it is associated with a specific class. A method is always a method *of* some class or object. > For example, this is the text from tutorialpoint on Python: > Python includes the following list functions - cmp, len etc. The functions ‘cmp’, ‘len’, are not associated with any particular class. They can be called without being bound to any object. > Python includes following list methods - append, count That means the functions it is referring to are each methods of ‘list’. Any instance of ‘list’ has methods ‘append’ and ‘count’, bound to that instance. > In the first case, len is a function that python provides to which > list can be passed and in the second case, append is a method within > list class? Yes, that's correct. > If my interpretation is correct, why not make len also as a part of > list class itself? Because ‘len’ works with *any* sequence, not only lists. To implement it as a method of each sequence type, it would have to be implemented on each type separately, which is a design that is needlessly more complex. This is common in Python: it uses so-called “duck typing”, where the way an object behaves is more important than its type. Because “what is the length of this object” is a question valid for a broad variety of types, the design decision was made to allow it to accept any type for which that query makes sense. <URL:https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-duck-typing> Your particular question is itself a FAQ <URL:https://docs.python.org/3/faq/design.html#why-does-python-use-methods-for-some-functionality-e-g-list-index-but-functions-for-other-e-g-len-list>. -- \ “All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular | `\ positions.” —Adlai Stevenson | _o__) | Ben Finney -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
