A relatively sane approach to multiple dispatch in Python.
This implementation of multiple dispatch is efficient, mostly complete, performs static analysis to avoid conflicts, and provides optional namespace support. It looks good too.
See the documentation at https://multiple-dispatch.readthedocs.io/
>>> from multipledispatch import dispatch
>>> @dispatch(int, int)
... def add(x, y):
... return x + y
>>> @dispatch(object, object)
... def add(x, y):
... return "%s + %s" % (x, y)
>>> add(1, 2)
3
>>> add(1, 'hello')
'1 + hello'- Dispatches on all non-keyword arguments
- Supports inheritance
- Supports instance methods
- Supports union types, e.g.
(int, float) - Supports builtin abstract classes, e.g.
Iterator, Number, ... - Caches for fast repeated lookup
- Identifies possible ambiguities at function definition time
- Provides hints to resolve ambiguities when they occur
- Supports namespaces with optional keyword arguments
- Vararg dispatch
@dispatch([int])
def add(*args):
...- Diagonal dispatch
a = arbitrary_type()
@dispatch(a, a)
def are_same_type(x, y):
return True- Efficient update: The addition of a new signature requires a full resolve of
the whole function. This becomes troublesome after you get to a few hundred
type signatures. It can be mitigated by halting and restarting ordering see
(
halt_orderingandrestart_orderingfunctions for more information.)
multipledispatch is on the Python Package Index (PyPI):
pip install multipledispatch
or
easy_install multipledispatch
multipledispatch supports Python 2.6+ and Python 3.2+ with a common
codebase. It is pure Python and requires no dependencies beyond the standard
library.
It is, in short, a light weight dependency.
New BSD. See License file.
- Five-minute Multimethods in Python by Guido
- multimethods package on PyPI
- singledispatch in Python 3.4's functools
- Clojure Protocols
- Julia methods docs
- Karpinksi notebook: *The Design Impact of Multiple Dispatch*
- Wikipedia article
- PEP 3124 - *Overloading, Generic Functions, Interfaces, and Adaptation*