What's the purpose of the + (pos) unary operator in Python?

Question

Generally speaking, what should the unary + do in Python?

I\'m asking because, so far, I have never seen a situation like this:

+obj !=          


        

Answer 1

__pos__() exists in Python to give programmers similar possibilities as in C++ language — to overload operators, in this case the unary operator +.

(Overloading operators means give them a different meaning for different objects, e. g. binary + behaves differently for numbers and for strings — numbers are added while strings are concatenated.)

Objects may implement (beside others) these emulating numeric types functions (methods):

    __pos__(self)             # called for unary +
    __neg__(self)             # called for unary -
    __invert__(self)          # called for unary ~

So +object means the same as object.__pos__() — they are interchangeable.

However, +object is more easy on the eye.

Creator of a particular object has free hands to implement these functions as he wants — as other people showed in their real world's examples.

And my contribution — as a joke: ++i != +i in C/C++.