On 19 Jan 2006 13:57:06 +0100 Anton Vredegoor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Some time ago I tried to 'sell' Python to a mathematician. > The crucial point was that it was not (in standard Python) > possible to have a matrix A and a matrix B and then do for > example: > > A = A * B > > and have a matrix multiplication performed.
Um, why not? I'm trying to think what would be the stumbling block. I don't use matrix multiplies much, but I have implemented 3D vector math so that "*" is the "dot product" and "%" is the "cross product", which is pretty trivial to do. The only obstacle I've run into is that you can't (easily) define *new* operators and precedence levels. There *is* a trick for doing this that was posted on the list some time back, which involved overloading an operator to "apply an operator": It would've allowed you to do something like this: a |dot| b a |cross| b or perhaps a <dot> b a <cross> b I don't remember where this is posted. The trick was in overloading the <, >, or | to interact specially with "operator" objects. -- Terry Hancock ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
