You have to check the C code to be sure, but IIRC the latest dict implementation has a dense array of the values in insert order, and the hash table (which has gaps) contains indexes into the values array. So you could easily index into the values array (which I believe also has the keys) in O(1) time.

Though what happens to the dense array when a key is deleted? It must leave a gap there too. So, never mind, you’d have to walk through the array counting items but not gaps, and that’s O(n). Which explains why we don’t have such an API. But please check the C code!

—Guido

On Sun, Oct 10, 2021 at 07:18 Alex Waygood <alex.waygood@gmail.com> wrote:

Should `dict.items()` be indexable now that dicts are ordered? I say yes. Why shouldn't it?

Would there be a way to ensure that this had the same time complexity as indexing of sequences? If "yes", I would support this — I think it would be useful in some situations, and it would be more efficient than existing mechanisms to obtain the nth key from a dictionary. If (as I presume), the answer is "no", then I would not support this — I think it would give the misleading impression that obtaining the  nth key/value from a dictionary is just as efficient as obtaining the nth item from a list or tuple.

Best,

Alex

On 10 Oct 2021, at 05:05, Finn Mason <finnjavier08@gmail.com> wrote:



On Sat, Oct 9, 2021, 9:56 PM Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> wrote:

[Snip...]

Newbies won't know first() lives in itertools, and those experienced
enough to know it is there probably won't bother to use it.

A very good point.

Let's get back to the original topic. Should `dict.items()` be indexable now that dicts are ordered? I say yes. Why shouldn't it?

--

Finn Mason

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