Question

In Python, what is the difference between add and __add__ methods?

Answer 1

A method called add is just that – a method with that name. It has no special meaning whatsoever to the language or the interpreter. The only other thing that could be said about it is that sets have a method with the same name. That’s it, nothing special about it.

The method __add__ is called internally by the + operator, so it gets special attention in the language spec and by the interpreter and you override it to define addition for object of a class. You don’t call it directly (you can – they’re still normal methods, they only get called implicitly in some circumstances and have some extra restrictions – but there’s rarely if ever a reason – let alone a good reason). See the docs on “special” methods for details and a complete list of other “special” methods.