Why isn't the 'len' function inherited by dictionaries and lists in Python

Question

example:

a_list = [1, 2, 3]
a_list.len() # doesn't work
len(a_list) # works

Python being (very) object oriented, I don't understand why the 'len' function isn't inherited by the object. Plus I keep trying the wrong solution since it appears as the logical one to me

Answer 1

Guido's explanation is here:

First of all, I chose len(x) over x.len() for HCI reasons (def __len__() came much later). There are two intertwined reasons actually, both HCI:

(a) For some operations, prefix notation just reads better than postfix — prefix (and infix!) operations have a long tradition in mathematics which likes notations where the visuals help the mathematician thinking about a problem. Compare the easy with which we rewrite a formula like x*(a+b) into x*a + x*b to the clumsiness of doing the same thing using a raw OO notation.

(b) When I read code that says len(x) I know that it is asking for the length of something. This tells me two things: the result is an integer, and the argument is some kind of container. To the contrary, when I read x.len(), I have to already know that x is some kind of container implementing an interface or inheriting from a class that has a standard len(). Witness the confusion we occasionally have when a class that is not implementing a mapping has a get() or keys() method, or something that isn’t a file has a write() method.

Saying the same thing in another way, I see ‘len‘ as a built-in operation. I’d hate to lose that. /…/

Answer 2

The short answer: 1) backwards compatibility and 2) there's not enough of a difference for it to really matter. For a more detailed explanation, read on.

The idiomatic Python approach to such operations is special methods which aren't intended to be called directly. For example, to make x + y work for your own class, you write a __add__ method. To make sure that int(spam) properly converts your custom class, write a __int__ method. To make sure that len(foo) does something sensible, write a __len__ method.

This is how things have always been with Python, and I think it makes a lot of sense for some things. In particular, this seems like a sensible way to implement operator overloading. As for the rest, different languages disagree; in Ruby you'd convert something to an integer by calling spam.to_i directly instead of saying int(spam).

You're right that Python is an extremely object-oriented language and that having to call an external function on an object to get its length seems odd. On the other hand, len(silly_walks) isn't any more onerous than silly_walks.len(), and Guido has said that he actually prefers it (http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-3000/2006-November/004643.html).