[bilboa]

This is because the actual translation of `a + b` is a little more complicated. It's something like this:

  if '__add__' in a.__dict__:
      try:
          return a.__add__(b)
      except NotImplemented:
          if '__radd__' in b.__dict__:
            return b.__radd__(a)
  elif '__radd__' in b.__dict__:
      return b.__radd__(a)
  
  raise TypeError('unsupported operand type(s) for +: '{}' and '{}'.format(type(a), type(b))

In particular, the runtime seems to directly look for '__add__' in the object's __dict__, rather than just trying to invoke `__add__`, so your `__getattribute__` method isn't enough to make it work. If you add an actual `__add__` method to A your example will work.

[chriswarbo]

Yeah, I had a feeling the real 'expansion' would be more involved. I didn't know about the lookup in __dict__, that's good to know.

I'm reminded of PHP, where (at least in version 5.*) we could write:

    $myObject->foo = function() { return "hello world"; };

    $x = $myObject->foo;
    $x(); // Hello world

    $myObject->foo();  // Error: no such method 'foo'

(Taken from an old comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8119419 )

[bilboa]

I found the official docs on how python special methods are looked up.

https://docs.python.org/3/reference/datamodel.html#special-l...

Apparently the runtime is even more picky than I showed. The method has to be defined on the object's type, not in the object's instance dictionary. So, really the lookup is something like:

  if hasattr(type(a), '__add__'):

The link I provided explains the rationale for bypassing the instance dictionary and `__getattribute__` method.