How to inherit mathematical operations?

Question

For a group of objects that are number like (called an ordered field) you only need the following things:

• Addition
• Multiplication
• Negation
• Reciprocal
• LessThanEqual

And the rest (like subtraction and equality) follow. Obvioulsy, I will also need to add things like __init__ and __str__, but what type of object can I inherit from that will supply the other operators? Some other operators that I wish would be inferred from the above include:

• Subtraction
• Division
• Absolute Value
• All other comparison operators
• Etc...

Answer 1

Take a look at the numbers module. It has abstract base classes for numeric types.

Also take a look at the list of magic methods related to numerical types: http://www.rafekettler.com/magicmethods.html#numeric

Answer 2

While not a complete answer, for comparisons, there is functools.total_ordering.