Magic Methods: An Underrated Gem of Python OOP

Magic Methods (also called dunder methods) are special methods defined inside a Python class' implementation.

They are prefixed and suffixed with double underscores, such as __len__, __str__, and many more.

Magic Methods offer immense flexibility to define the behavior of class objects in certain scenarios.

For instance, say we want to define a custom behavior for adding two objects of our class (obj1 + obj2).

An obvious and straightforward to do this is by defining a method, say add_objects(), and passing the two objects as its argument.

While the above approach will work, invoking a method explicitly for adding two objects isn't as elegant as using the + operator:

This is where magic methods come in. In the above example, implementing the __add__ magic method will allow you to add the two objects using the + operator instead.

Thus, magic methods allow us to make our classes more intuitive and easier to work with.

As a result, awareness about them is extremely crucial for developing elegant, and intuitive pipelines.

The visual summarizes ~20 most commonly used magic methods in Python.

Over to you: What other magic methods will you include here? Which ones do you use the most? Let me know :)

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