Are magic methods used very often?

Question

I can’t seem to find any use for magic methods as a beginner. Does anyone (beginner, advanced, etc.) use them often?

Answer 1

class Person:
def __init__(self, firseName, lastName):
self.fname = firseName.title()
self.lname = lastName.title()

def __str__(self): ## < this magic method called by the print function.
return self.fname + " " + self.lname

def __len__(self): ## < this magic method is called by the len function
return len(self.fname + self.lname)

me = Person("angus", "young")
print(me)
print(len(me))

Answer 2

One use for them is defining custom operations between objects of your class. Then you can use shorthands when manipulating the objects. There are lots of magic methods that may be useful depending on what your class represents. Play around with making classes and see which ones would be useful in your situation.

An example of when I've used them is when I made a class representing 3D vectors. I used the __add__ and __sub__ magic methods to represent vector addition and subtraction in a way that is more intuitive (lets me use the + and - symbols between vectors). I also used the __repr__ magic method for string representation so that I would be able to print the vector objects to the console to actually see the results of calculations. Here's the code so you can have a look:
https://code.sololearn.com/ci2jGI4TAfvo/?ref=app