Calculating Euclidean distance using Magic Methods in Python 3

Question

I have a code that calculates Euclidean distance for me:

class Point:
    \"\"\"A point in two-dimensional space.\"\"\"

    def __init__(self, x, y):
        se         


        

Answer 1

It does not make sense for the difference of two points to be a point. It seems the object you are trying to implement is in fact a vector.

Then the distance corresponds to the norm of a vector, implemented with __abs__.

class Vector:
    def __init__(self, *args):
        self._coords = args

    def __add__(self, other):
        return Vector(*[x + y for x, y in zip(self._coords, other._coords)])

    def __sub__(self, other):
        return Vector(*[x - y for x, y in zip(self._coords, other._coords)])

    def __abs__(self):
        """Euclidian norm of the vector"""
        return sum(x**2 for x in self._coords) ** (1 / 2)

Example

v1 = Vector(1, 3)
v2 = Vector(4, -1)

print(abs(v2 - v1)) # 5.0

# Also works in higher dimensions
v3 = Vector(1, -1, 0)
v4 = Vector(4, 6, -2)

print(abs(v3 - v4)) # 7.87