- allow compatibility with string ops passed here from custom libraries

diff --git a/lib/sqlalchemy/sql/expression.py b/lib/sqlalchemy/sql/expression.py
index ec1d9c74cdb303548bf07703d55387caff460f9b..2c1c047b57de62a53ebd76484a2e6ac35fb1a291 100644 (file)
--- a/lib/sqlalchemy/sql/expression.py
+++ b/lib/sqlalchemy/sql/expression.py
@@ -3545,6 +3545,10 @@ class BinaryExpression(ColumnElement):
 
     def __init__(self, left, right, operator, type_=None,
                     negate=None, modifiers=None):
+        # allow compatibility with libraries that
+        # refer to BinaryExpression directly and pass strings
+        if isinstance(operator, basestring):
+            operator = operators.custom_op(operator)
         self.left = _literal_as_text(left).self_group(against=operator)
         self.right = _literal_as_text(right).self_group(against=operator)
         self.operator = operator