Overloading (or alternatives) in Python API design

Question

I have a large existing program library that currently has a .NET binding, and I\'m thinking about writing a Python binding. The existing API makes extensive use of signatur

Answer 1

You could use a dictionary, like so

Circle({'points':[p1,p2,p3]})
Circle({'radius':r})
Circle({'curves':[c1,c2,c3])

And the initializer would say

def __init__(args):
  if len(args)>1:
    raise SomeError("only pass one of points, radius, curves")
  if 'points' in args: {blah}
  elsif 'radius' in args: {blahblah}
  elsif 'curves' in args: {evenmoreblah}
  else: raise SomeError("same as above")