Message 289434 - Python tracker
And what about even wackier code like this?
class A(int):
def __lt__(self, other):
print("zebra")
A.__lt__ = A.__false_lt__
return int.__lt__(self, other)
__true_lt__ = __lt__
def __false_lt__(self, other):
print("gizmo")
A.__lt__ = A.__true_lt__
return int.__lt__(self, other)
[A(i) for i in range(20, 5, -1)].sort()
This alternates printing "zebra" and "gizmo" for every comparison, and there is no way to add some sort of caching without changing this behavior.