5 Useful Dunder Methods In Python

Today we will be learning about 5 useful dunder methods that we can use in Python.
▶ Become job-ready with Python:
www.indently.io
▶ Follow me on Instagram:
/ indentlyreels
00:00 Learning Python made simple
00:05 Intro
00:14 _eq_
03:49 _format_
05:42 _or_
08:41 _repr_
11:24 _getitem_
15:51 What are your thoughts?

[@xinaesthetic]

One minor point: to make the search case-insensitive, you should really lower the input as well.

[@Indently]

Fair point!

[@xinaesthetic]

@@Indently great post, though, thanks.

[@asmaamagedy9872]

​@@Indently Thanks for every thing❤

[@GitaAska-is6yz]

​@@Indently please tutorial full all method

[@quillaja]

Or better yet, casefold to deal with some non-ascii characters. Possibly unicode normalization as well for stuff like combining characters. Text is hard.

[@Bwanshoom]

F-strings can also show the repr of an object using the !r specifier: f"{item!r}"

[@davidmurphy563]

G-strings can show a lot too.

[@marmiksharma2573]

​@@davidmurphy563 wtheckk😂

[@DrDeuteron]

Since which version? And is it pronounced bang r? Does anyone remember back quotes being assign to repr?

[@nibblrrr7124]

@@DrDeuteron f-strings (or "formatted string literals") were added in *Python 3.6* , released end of 2016. The type converter !r to call repr() was there from the start, as proposed in PEP498 - along with !a for ascii(), and the rarely useful !s for str(). I have never thought about its pronounciation before, but I'm definitely going to use "banger" from now on. :D

[@DrDeuteron]

@@nibblrrr7124 don't forget unicode() from 2x, but those backward quotes `foo` -> repr(foo) were weird. Though emacs knew about them,

[@poixd1ro968]

Your content is one of the best, I would never have imagined that __str__ was different than __repr__

[@DrDeuteron]

one common pythonic thing is, repr(instance) should return a string so that: >>>instance == eval(repr(instance)) is True, so something _like_: return f"{type(self).___name__}(}" + ", ".join(f'{k}={v}' for k, v in self.___dict___.items()) + ")" Also: note that these dunder methods are _strongly typed_ and MUST return a str. You can also use the "dunder module" static class attribute to assist.

[@developer_anonymous]

Good video, but Pyright suggest you to use `self.__class__` when instating the same class instead of using `ClassName(...)`. So in the `__or__` method you should instead return `self.__class__(...)`, and basically in every method that returns a new instance of Self. Hope it helps!

[@DrDeuteron]

Doesn’t type(self) work too?

[@DownThereForDancing]

Wow I have been sitting on a use-case for union, intersection and subtraction methods for the past year but never knew the syntax could be so nice with these dunder methods (__or__ and friends). Thank you!

[@SusanAmberBruce]

Two and a half kilo Apple! I did dream about such a thing when I was a kid, familiar with scrumping.

[@rodrigodanielvittoriali6629]

Man! I had no idea Python could do all of this. So glad the algo picked this. Thanks for the info!

[@anon_y_mousse]

Personally, I would require that the name representation was always lowercase anyway, even on initialization. As for fun with operators, I like to overload / on strings in languages that don't already do so to act as the split operation. Say you've got a string that's s = "foo,bar,baz,luhrmann"; then a = s / ','; would yield an array of strings containing ["foo", "bar", "baz", "luhrmann"].

[@landsgevaer]

Nice complement of multiplying strings! I might borrow that idea.

[@pavfrang]

Thank you, very intuitive and precise presentation!

[@Mefodii]

Great video, thanks One extra thing which I learned was that you can do filter with list comprehension. Until now I did filter + lambda (which basically was shooting myself in the leg because of whacky annotations).Thanks again

[@VoxelPrismatic]

I'm just thankful I finally know what these methods are called. Every few months or so, I come up with an idea with classes, and I need to scour the internet 15min for the python documentation on all these methods.

[@felo7343]

If you thought that was tough, imagine trying to do the same thing 15 to 20 years ago....

[@Anomaa]

I'm not a fan of most dunder methods (specifically for operators) most of the time since they drastically reduce understanding of the code. For example at 7:33, to try to guess in advance what will be displayed, we must: - know that the syntax "|" is related to the dunder method "__or__" - read the documentation/source code A function/method/classmethod anything else actually with an explicit name (like "combine") and a good docstring would be so much more readable

[@DrDeuteron]

For me, I love overloading operators, until I want to see where something happens in the code.

[@Raugturi]

Also it's weird to have "__or__" method that's not commutative. I would not expect `a | b == b | a` to return False and here it will. Edit: Fixed based on @mudi2000a comment.

[@thomaseb97]

certain functionality is fine for dunder methods, basically where they are self explainatory, __str__ is a simple expectation, __eq__ aswell an example where __add__ and other mathmatical operators is fine to overload is for example a Point class which just represents multiple numbers basically use dunder methods where its extremely clear what it does under the hood by just knowing what the class represents without looking at the actual implementation

[@nibblrrr7124]

I disagree with your first point (that it's not obvious that the "|" operator calls "__or__"), as that is just being familiar with Python. That ship has sailed with "__init__", hasn't it? (The fact that we have come to accept how messed-up and confusing constructor syntax in C++/Java is another topic...) However, I do agree that unless the meaning is obvious - like the interfaces from collections.abc, or behaving similarly to builtin datatypes ("+" for concatenation, like with str or list) - or well-documented and signposted, you're probably better off using regular methods and make the users write more explicit calls.

[@mudi2000a]

@@Raugturi You mean commutative.

[@rezanabulsi3220]

Heya, just wanted to ask what theme you're using. Still fairly new to Python and loving the content so far

[@SoftwareEngineeringUz]

you do it so useful for all of us. I know what you are one of the best python developer.

[@rishiraj2548]

Great thanks

[@stefanocardarelli9201]

Thanks alot for the quality content you provide! One question: what is the extension that shows you classes and methods usages throughout code? When coding rust that thing is auto enabled (thanks to the compiler features I guess)… thanks in advance :)

[@kristerl939]

Like this and I agree with @xinaesthetic about the input should be also be converted. But you should use 'casefold()' instead of 'lower()', in these examples it might not matter but it should always be used when a comparison is made. Keep up with the videos.

[@krzysiekkrzysiek9059]

If I do order with subscriptions, this channel stays. Great kind of practical tutorial 🔥

[@workingguy3166]

Man this is crazy helpful, this is some advanced stuff

[@TheWyrdSmythe]

From my Java days, one rule I’ve always followed is: “Always define toString!” In Python, it’s: “Always define dunder str and repr!” It should be one of the first things you do when you write a class. (FWIW, I typically use dunder repr to return a JSON-like string, but that’s just me.)

[@nibblrrr7124]

One rule of thumb I try to follow: eval(repr(my_object)) == my_object So repr() should give the code to construct the same (or at least an equivalent) object. This is what e.g. dataclass or namedtuple do by default. Use dunder attributes for the class name, to avoid mistakes when renaming classes or copying code: def __repr__(self): return f"{__class__.__qualname__}(x={self.x!r}, ...)" If this one-liner gets too cluttered, put the class name in a helper variable cls and use ', '.join() or linebreak-separated strings within parentheses for the constructor args/attributes. Now that I think of it, this _could_ probably be automated into a class wrapper using introspection to get the constructor signature... I guess you could use name instead of qualname, b/c AFAIU it only makes a difference with nested classes, which IMHO should make anyone pause and question their choices, anyway. :^)

[@TheWyrdSmythe]

@@nibblrrr7124 Yeah, that's nice! The JSON string I usually emit is something like: {classname:{attributes and values}} Which does allow reconstruction of the object from the JSON and is fairly readable when debugging.

[@mudi2000a]

If you use it for debugging only, __repr__ is enough, it will be automatically called also instead of __str__ if __str__ does not exist.

[@dipeshsamrawat7957]

Nice. Keep it up. 💯

[@jesusromero9167]

Great video!

[@dbottesi]

another great video thumbs up!!

[@SciChronicleUniverse]

really knowledgeful

[@user-co9rc1kp7p]

Another cool video, thanks! Hope to see more ___dunders__ :)

[@chandrasekars8904]

This is really an excellent channel on Python like "techie talkee"

[@aliakbarsobhanpour8470]

that was awesome.

[@mikerico6175]

The __repr line 11, you can just do return f ‘{value =}’ instead of f ‘value = {value }’ . Also, for the __get_item lines 28 29

[@davidl3383]

thanks a lot

[@felicytatomaszewska2934]

Very nice … can you please do videos on testing

[@rondamon4408]

What's your microphone brand/model? It sounds amazing!

[@Indently]

It's the Røde NT USB

[@rondamon4408]

@@Indently merci

[@williamsquires3070]

(@3:30) This raises several questions: 1) wouldn’t this implementation of the __eq__ dunder method make it compare the addresses of the two dictionaries? 2) can you change the value of the instance’s values through the dictionary, with the __dict__ dunder method? That is, if you change the value associated with the key, ‘grams’, will it change the instance’s ‘grams’ property to that new value, or only the dictionary?

[@DrDeuteron]

What’s great about python is that you can test it in an interpreter about as fast as you can answer the question.

[@nibblrrr7124]

1) No, because == on the default collections (dict, list, set, ...) compares their contents by value. Use the *is* operator for checking for identity, i.e. whether they're literally referring to the same object in memory. 2) Yes, at least for normal user-defined classes (AFAIU classes can use slots instead of a class dict; also @property attributes might be an issue). Please don't, as it's hella confusing. But as Raymond Hettinger puts it: "Python is a language for consenting adults." (See also: Why are there no private methods?)

[@artygor2524]

Nice tutorial, except for the part where you did basket: Basket = (fruit = fruit), that was the equivalent of calling a string just "string" and it really confused me

[@Alchemist10241]

Didn't know we can specify the return type in Python, thanks

[@sarimbinwaseem]

And you can return a different type regardless of the specification... 😄

[@Alchemist10241]

@@sarimbinwaseem hmmm interesting

[@DrDeuteron]

Every thing is a first class object in python

[@Edurolp]

Great video :D btw you have some big bananas in there!

[@AtselWarawara]

I'm new to python, is there any version requirements or restrictions to use these Dunder methods?

[@landsgevaer]

Don't think so (post python2 i presume?)

[@AtselWarawara]

@@landsgevaer yes, I use 3.10 however I need compatibility to 3.7 and 3.8

[@pro.elisei]

(1) It gives me an error when I annotate 'other' with 'Fruit' or 'Self' at or and repr Dunder Methods (e.g. def __or__(self, other: Fruit) -> Fruit:)... it says „NameError: name 'Fruit' is not defined”. It works only with 'object' (def __or__(self, other: object) -> object:). And if I write 'object', PyCharm warns me at 'combined: Fruit = apple | orange | banana' -> expected object type Fruit :)) Any thoughts? Thanks! and (2) If you want to use __format__ and __str__ / __repr__ at the same time, it won't work. It raises the error from __fomat__ match _: ValueError: Unknown format specifier... You will have to specify the desc match to work - print(f'str: {fruit:desc}') P.S. I found your videos recently and it's a pleasure watching them. Keep it up! ❤

[@landsgevaer]

Without checking: from __future__ import annotations and/or from typing import Self

[@exkalybur_dev]

I'm learning English. I'd like to know where are you or where come from your accent. Please. Thanks a lot.

[@landsgevaer]

Sounds German(ic).

[@zoookx]

9:11 my grandmother is a developer. She can read both.

[@TomLeg]

It's important to prioritize your fruits 🙂

[@matthewbay1978]

I just imagine an Easter egg in all of their code where if you add 'banana' to the end of an input, it will show an ASCII art banana for 5 seconds before moving on to the actual functionality of the code.

[@vanka_feelgood3000]

I think Self in the __eq__ is not correct. In general, we can compare with any object, just need to return False if the other object is not the instance of the class

[@DrDeuteron]

Luckily type hints don’t matter

[@loo_9]

begone javascript sympathizer. although python does not enforce it, you should not be using the == operator on objects of different types. if you want to compare objects and but are not sure the type, your problems are much deeper

[@iestyn129]

Did you mean to use ‘fruit.name.lower() == item.lower()’? I’m just checking because it sounded like you meant to do that lol

[@Indently]

Yes, as someone else pointed, I only did half the job there xD

[@PerfectArmonic]

Where can i Find a comprehensive list of all python dunder methods?

[@MeHdi.fz28]

Python document webpage

[@landsgevaer]

Google "list of all dunder methods in python" disappointed you?

[@kyrgyzsanjar]

What is the name of that assigment style with colon? apple: Fruit = Fruit(name="", grams=) What's different vs. apple = Fruit(....)?

[@anon_y_mousse]

It's a type annotation. I was just playing around with the interpreter and it doesn't prevent me from assigning other types to a variable, so I'm not really sure what the point is other than to provide documentation for anyone reading the source code, but if you just call a constructor like that it's redundant for seemingly no reason. Maybe someone more knowledgeable about Python can correct us both, but for what it's worth, I wouldn't bother unless the declaration is separate from your first initialization of a variable.

[@kyrgyzsanjar]

@@anon_y_mousse oh got it! Yeah makes sense!

[@AAI_Einstein]

4:30 when were these keywords added?😂

[@TheWyrdSmythe]

Oof, da! I would _never_ redefine get _item_ to return a list. For that, add another method with a better name. And you need to .lower() the item, too!

[@MyrLin8]

Is there a 'head' method? ;)

[@DrDeuteron]

No, but there is a mifflin

[@landsgevaer]

Pandas dataframes have a head method; not dunder though...

[@thousandsunny100]

I get this error on the first example, "NameError: name 'Self' is not defined".

[@johnraz99]

Did you include the first line: from typing import Self Because I'm using Python 3.10, I had to include: from typing_extensions import Self

[@thousandsunny100]

@@johnraz99 totally missed it. Thanks!

[@jccorman5848]

1500g! What a big banana you have 😂

[@DebashishGhoshOfficial]

What if I do apple | apple ?

[@landsgevaer]

Fruit(name="apple & apple", grams=2000.0) the way he implemented it (I don't remember the weight).

[@AsherGene-uw6hk]

Second

[@willyyeremi5284]

when i reach the __getitem__ section, i only think "fruit for fruit inside fruit, idk man, can i just eat all of it???"

[@WiktorWandachowicz]

😅With regard to *__eq__* "double underscore" method (hence the name "dunder") you really should mention that it compares two OBJECTS here, not CLASSES... For obvious reasons objects are instances of classes, not "aliases" like you have said in the first part 😉 That said, this material is still worthwhile. But my university ears just hurt when such mistakes are done. Best regards and thanks!

[@jeviwaugh9791]

third

[@iestyn129]

🐟

[@BersekViking]

That was one big banana. :)

[@vaulttectradingco8438]

Discord gang

[@user-bc1xp2of2x]

I love you infinite percent

[@mikerico6175]

f ‘{value =}’

[@diogolscc]

first

[@DrDeuteron]

its dunder getitem, not get_item.

[@Indently]

Thank you, I have updated both the thumbnail and description!

[@i7Solutions]

your way of writing variables with type hinting really confused me

[@Beau_DeMayo]

I do not recomend any python user see this video. Several things of python 1 (still are teached and mixed with Cobol or other grosser language anyway…

[@user-bd1dh7hh1j]

Man, those tooltips are extremely annoying. They distract me a lot from reading the code as you type it.

[@DrDeuteron]

Do you mean the annotations? Like: Twopi : float = three: int + 0.1 : float + 41: int / pow(10: int, 3: int) ? Yes. And telling ppl dunder init returns None, I just can’t. Of dunder str returns str. Same for int, float, complex, etc….

[@user-bd1dh7hh1j]

@@DrDeuteron No. I just meant the IDE tooltips

[@DrDeuteron]

@@user-bd1dh7hh1j oh. Yes, I turn those off all the time, esp when I'm writing a line that depends the prior line... ...it opens up and hides what I want to build off of and tells me a bunch of stuff I don't need to know.