Op 2004-12-23, Scott David Daniels schreef <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:This is half the problem. In the period where an element is in the wrong hash bucket, a new entry for the same value can be created in the proper hash bucket. Then the code will have to determine how to merge two entries at rehash time.
But similar problems can happen in a sorted list, where the sort is done on a "key" of the data and where you don't want duplicate "keys".
If you then mutate a "key", it may be possible to insert a duplicate "key" in the sorted list because the list isn't sorted anymore. If you then resort your list you also have to determine how to merge the two items with the same "key"
I'd say this is a stretch. The "key" argument to sort is very new, and it is a function from data to a value. The "key" can be mutated only if the key function is picking out a mutable part of a data element.
This just to show that repairing sorted lists can be just as
troublesome as repairing dictionaries. People who think sorted lists of mutable objects is less bothersome as dictionaries
with mutable keys, haven't thought things through IMO.
But Python has no "sorted list" data type, so it is perfectly reasonable
to expect such lists to go through transitional representations. A set
should not briefly have duplicate elements, a list should not vary in length when elements are replaced, an integer being continuously
incremented should not be viewable from a separate thread as anything
but monotonicly increasing; dictionaries are primitives and should not
have observable transitional states.
--Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
