dbpokorny@gmail.com wrote:
-1 for ordered dict +1 for sorted dict
Build the ordered dict, then sort it in-place afterwards, just like a list (alternatively, build a normal dict then feed sorted(orig.items()) to the ordered dict constructor). The point of an ordered dict is that unlike a normal dict, the order the keys are returned is well defined at the interface level, rather than arbitrary and implementation-defined. David Wolever's example of a normal dict() with an associated key list is an excellent way of thinking about the proposed semantics. Having a fast ordered dict in the standard library also opens up the possibility of eventually using such a thing for keyword arguments at some point in the future. How nice would it be to be able to just write: t = namedtuple(a=1, b=2, c=3) instead of: c = namedtuple("a b c") t = c(a=1, b=2, c=3) Cheers, Nick. -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia --------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.boredomandlaziness.org