[Biopython-dev] SeqRecord comparison suggestion

[Lenna Peterson]

On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 12:57 PM, Iddo Friedberg <idoerg at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks!
>
> My initial thoughts are that seqrecord instances should not have an __eq__
> operator. The equality operation here is somewhat meaningless when you
> consider the number of parameters that can constitute a seqrecord,
> especially when dealing with a genomic record or  a contig. This can lead
> to unexpected behavior.


> That being said, it may be a good idea to allow for a function that
> performs a comprehensive comparison using all attributes.
>

I agree that an explicit comparison method would be less error-prone than
==. This method could even allow the user to specify which attributes must
be identical for equality.


> Specifically to answer your question: I don't think the address comparison
> is by design. It's a Python feature.
>

__eq__ and __ne__ could instead be defined to raise NotImplementedError to
prevent future users from experiencing the same problems and direct them to
the explicit comparison method.

Cheers,

Lenna