Ganesan Rajagopal wrote: > the definition of "sorted" and "ordered", before we can > go on ? Sorted > would be ordered by key comparison. Iterating over such a container will > give you the keys in sorted order. Java calls this a SortedMap. See > http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/util/SortedMap.html C++ STL > map container is also a Sorted Associative container. See > http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl/Map.html Ganesan
Exactly, that's "sorted." "Ordered" means the same there is some order between the existing elements, but there is no magic (i.e. a general comparison function) for ordering new elements. Thus, if you add an element to an ordered collection, it simply gets appended (is considered as the greatest of all elements) by convention, whereas if you add an element to a sorted collection, it will be inserted into the correct place by using the comparison function. -- Christoph -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
