Elliptical Python Programming

https://susam.net/elliptical-python-programming.html

184•sebg•1y ago

Comments

benob•1y ago

TIL that in python, 1--2==3

seplox•1y ago

It's not a python thing. 1-(-2), distribute the negative.

qsort•1y ago

In most C-like languages that would be a syntax error. E.g. in C and C++ as a rule you tokenize "greedily", "1--2" would be tokenized as "1", "unary decrement operator", "2", which is illegal because you're trying to decerment an rvalue.

Python doesn't have "--", which allows the tokenizer to do something else.

nyrikki•1y ago

In C, that is really because Unary minus (negation) has precedence over binary operations.

    +a - b; // equivalent to (+a) - b, NOT +(a - b)
    -c + d; // equivalent to (-c) + d, NOT -(c + d)

https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/operator_arithmet...

    +-e; // equivalent to +(-e), the unary + is a no-op if “e” is a built-in type
     // because any possible promotion is performed during negation already

The same doesn't apply to, !! Which is applied as iterated binary operations (IIRC)

I am pretty sure the decriment operator came around well after that quirk was established.

seanhunter•1y ago

Peter van der Linden’s book “Expert C Programming” (which is awesome btw) says that one of them (Kernighan, Richie or maybe Ken Thompson I forget) realised early on that the c compiler had the wrong operator precedence for bit twiddling and unary and boolean operators but “at that stage we had a few thousand lines of C code and thought it would be too disruptive to change it”

j2kun•1y ago

Also worth noting that `1 - -2` works and produces 3 in C because the space breaks the operator.

plus•1y ago

For those who are curious, `...` is a placeholder value in Python called Ellipsis. I don't believe it serves any real purpose other than being a placeholder. But it is an object and it implements `__eq__`, and is considered equal to itself. So `...==...` evaluates to `True`. When you prefix a `True` with `-`, it is interpreted as a prefix negation operator and implicitly converts the `True` to a `1`, so `-(...==...)` is equal to `-1`. Then, you add another prefix `-` to turn the `-1` back into `1`.

`--(...==...)--(...==...)` evaluates to `2` because the first block evaluates to 1, as previously mentioned, and then the next `-` is interpreted as an infix subtraction operator. The second `-(...==...)` evaluates to `-1`, so you get `1 - -1` or `2`.

When chaining multiple together, you can leave off the initial `--`, because booleans will be implicitly converted to integers if inserted into an arithmetic expression, e.g. `True - -1` -> `1 - -1` -> `2`.

> There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.

This article is obviously completely tongue-in-cheek, but I feel the need to point out that this sentence is not meant to be a complete inversion of the Perl philosophy of TIMTOWTDI. The word "obvious" is crucial here - there can be more than one way, but ideally only one of the ways is obvious.

pletnes•1y ago

Numpy actively uses … to make slicing multidimensional arrays less verbose. There are also uses in FastAPI along the lines of «go with the default».

abuckenheimer•1y ago

excellent explanation, to add to this since I was curious about the composition, '%c' is an integer presentation type that tells python to format numbers as their corresponding unicode characters[1] so

'%c' * (length_of_string_to_format) % (number, number, ..., length_of_string_to_format_numbers_later)

is the expression being evaluated here after you collapse all of the 1s + math formatting each number in the tuple as a unicode char for each '%c' escape in the string corresponding to its place in the tuple.

[1] https://docs.python.org/3/library/string.html#format-specifi...

nomel•1y ago

Expanding on this a little, I will be replacing all occurrences of 2 with two blobs fighting, with shields:

    >>> 0^((...==...)--++--(...==...))^0
    2

rmah•1y ago

>> There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.

Except for package management, of course. There, we need lots and lots of ways.

blooalien•1y ago

And apparently string formatting which should have an ever growing number of ways to handle it. :shrug:

elijahbenizzy•1y ago

Ok do this but for JavaScript

voidUpdate•1y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSFuck

mariocesar•1y ago

If you're curious, the code in ellipsis results in executing:

    print('hello, world')

mturmon•1y ago

Thank you!

I noticed some ** and * in the thing sent to eval(), which (given that the building blocks are small integers) seemed related to prime factorizations.

The initial %c is duplicated 21 times (3*7, if I read correctly), and then string-interpolated (%c%c%c...) against a long tuple of integers. These integers themselves are composed of products of factors combined using * and **.

There is also one tuple "multiplication" embedded within that long tuple of integers -- (a,b)*2 = (a,b,a,b). That is for the 'l' 'l' in "hello".

It's all very clever and amusingly mathy, with a winking allusion to the construction of natural numbers using sets. It made me Godel.

callamdelaney•1y ago

I think we're really starting to over crowd pythons syntax and I'm not a fan.

noddleah•1y ago

you're telling me you never program in python elliptically??

acbart•1y ago

Pretty sure this would have been possible in Python 2.6. The Ellipsis object has been around for a very long time.

MadVikingGod•1y ago

This behavior can be replicated with any class that has two special methods: __neg__ that returns -1 and __sub__ that accepts ints and returns 1-other.

For example if you make this class:

  class _:
       def __neg__(self):
           return -1
       def __sub__(self, other):
           return 1-other

You get similar behavior:

  >>> --_()
  1
  >>> _()--_()
  2

Fun python for everyone.

maxloh•1y ago

You can do this on JavaScript too.

  alert(1)
  // equals to:
  [][(![]+[])[+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]][([][(![]+[])[+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[][(![]+[])[+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+([][[]]+[])[+!+[]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]+([][[]]+[])[+[]]+([][(![]+[])[+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+(!![]+[][(![]+[])[+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]])[+!+[]+[+[]]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]]((![]+[])[+!+[]]+(![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[!+[]+!+[]+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]+([][(![]+[])[+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]]+[])[+!+[]+[+!+[]]]+[+!+[]]+([]+[]+[][(![]+[])[+!+[]]+(!![]+[])[+[]]])[+!+[]+[!+[]+!+[]]])()

https://jsfuck.com/

Category Theory Illustrated – Orders

Michael Rabin Has Died

Amiga Graphics

Claude Design

Show HN: I made a calculator that works over disjoint sets of intervals

It's OK to compare floating-points for equality

Measuring Claude 4.7's tokenizer costs

Towards trust in Emacs

All 12 moonwalkers had "lunar hay fever" from dust smelling like gunpowder (2018)

Spending 3 months coding by hand

The simple geometry behind any road

It is incorrect to "normalize" // in HTTP URL paths

Rewriting Every Syscall in a Linux Binary at Load Time

Are the costs of AI agents also rising exponentially? (2025)

A simplified model of Fil-C

Brunost: The Nynorsk Programming Language

Show HN: Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines

Loonies for Loongsons

Slop Cop

"cat readme.txt" is not safe if you use iTerm2

Show HN: PanicLock – Close your MacBook lid disable TouchID –> password unlock

Hyperscalers have already outspent most famous US megaprojects

NASA Force

Claude Code Opus 4.7 keeps checking on malware

Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin

Show HN: Sfsym – Export Apple SF Symbols as Vector SVG/PDF/PNG

Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution

NIST gives up enriching most CVEs

Casus Belli Engineering

Introducing: ShaderPad