On 14/04/2023 00:25, avi.e.gr...@gmail.com wrote: > Is there any concept in Python of storing information in some way, such as > text, and implementing various ideas or interfaces so that you can query if > the contents are willing and able to be viewed in one of many other ways?
Are you talking about something like a C union type (or a Pascal variant record)? I'm not aware of any such feature in Python but have often thought it would be a nice to have for the rare cases where its useful. > Or it may be storing text in some format but the object is willing to > transform the text into one of several other formats when needed. The text > may also have attributes such as whether it is in English or Hungarian or is > mixed-language. Or are you meaning something like an extension to the struct module that can interpret a bytestring in any way defined by a format string? > basis. But do some languages have some support within the language itself? The closest to what you seem to mean is, I think, the C union type, at least in my experience. But you have to define all the ways you can interpret the type up front in the type definition. > My reason for asking, is based on the discussion. If I want to use plus with > an integer and a string, it may be reasonable for the interpreter to ask one > or the other operand if they are able to be seen another way. You can achieve that in a slightly different way in Tcl which allows you to redefine all the operators (commands in Tcl-speak) in the language so redefining plus is easy. Doing it based on type is more tricky but doable. > Unfortunately, if they BOTH are flexible, how do you decide whether to add > them as numbers or concatenate them as strings? Yes, that's where it becomes a designer's arbitrary choice. -- Alan G Author of the Learn to Program web site http://www.alan-g.me.uk/ http://www.amazon.com/author/alan_gauld Follow my photo-blog on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alangauldphotos -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
