Override Python's 'in' operator?

Question:

If I am creating my own class in Python, what function should I define so as to allow the use of the in operator, e.g.

class MyClass(object):
    ...

m = MyClass()

if 54 in m:
    ...
Asked By: astrofrog

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Answers:

A more complete answer is:

class MyClass(object):

    def __init__(self):
        self.numbers = [1,2,3,4,54]

    def __contains__(self, key):
        return key in self.numbers

Here you would get True when asking if 54 was in m:

>>> m = MyClass()
>>> 54 in m
True  

See documentation on overloading __contains__.

Answered By: pthulin

Another way of having desired logic is to implement __iter__.

If you don’t overload __contains__ python would use __iter__ (if it’s overloaded) to check whether or not your data structure contains specified value.

Answered By: jedzer