How does len work?

Question

How does len works on Python?

Look at this example:

class INT(int):
    pass

class STR(str):

    def __len__(self):
        return INT(42)

q = STR('how').__len__()
print q, type(q)
q = len(STR('how'))
print q, type(q)

The output is:

42 <class '__main__.INT'>
42 <type 'int'>

How can I handdle it so len returns an INT instance?

Answers suggest that the only solution is overriding len

This is my alternativo implementation. It doesn't seem very harmful.

original_len = len
def len(o):
    l = o.__len__()
    if isinstance(l, int):
        return l
    original_len(o)

Answer 1

I don't think you can, unless you write your own len. The builtin len always return an int.

Answer 2

You won't be able to. At least if you want it to work with the rest of python. See the definition of len

Called to implement the built-in function len(). Should return the length of the object, an integer >= 0. Also, an object that doesn’t define a nonzero() method and whose len() method returns zero is considered to be false in a Boolean context.

Italics emphasis mine.

Answer 3

Do not do this. You need to learn when the best answer really is not to do what you are trying to do at all. This is one of those times.

Answer 4

As others say, don't do this. Consider how usage of this class would look:

length = len(s)     # the reader assumes `q` is an int.
length.in_yards()   # the reader is going WTF?!

Instead of violating the reader's expectations, why don't you just add a different method:

s.length_in_yards()

---

P.S. Doesn't solve this question, but if you have a good reason to write custom integer-like objects, you might be interested in the __index__ special method that allows such object to be directly usable for indexing built-in sequences.