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Comments on How is this code "dividing" by a string?

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How is this code "dividing" by a string?

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I found a strange expression in some Python code:

from library import HOME_DIRECTORY

file = HOME_DIRECTORY / "file.json"

It seems to be dividing a string by another string in order to do something with files.

However, I can't make this work in the REPL with my own strings:

>>> "one" / "two"
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for /: 'str' and 'str'

What is the code actually doing? Even if it didn't cause an error, I can't guess what dividing strings would mean, or why it would be useful.

posted 6 months ago

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6mo ago by hkotsubo‭

Andrew Ray‭

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2 comment threads

Classes can overload operators. One example is the [`Path` class from `pathlib` module](https://docs.... (1 comment)

What type is HOME_DIRECTORY? (1 comment)

hkotsubo‭ wrote 6 months ago

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Classes can overload operators. One example is the Path class from pathlib module, which overloads the division operator /, so path / anotherpath_or_string creates another Path object:

from pathlib import Path

# path to folder "ab"
ab = Path('ab')
# path to subfolder "ab/cd"
cd = ab / 'cd'

This comes in handy because / is used as a path separator in *nix systems, so using it to join paths seems more "natural". Anyway, as another comment says, I doubt that HOME_DIRECTORY is a string, as Python's strings don't overload the division operator - I suggest you to print(type(HOME_DIRECTORY)) to check its type.