[pypy-dev] Object identity and dict strategies

[Antonio Cuni]

On 08/07/11 17:19, Armin Rigo wrote:

> As I said in my previous e-mail, I think that e.g. copy.py relies on
> such behavior, and more generally any Python code that has to use id()
> to emulate an identity-dict --- as broken as that approach is, just
> because CPython thought that identity-dicts were unnecessary.
> 
> It may not actually be a problem right now in copy.py, but still, I
> fear that it's a problem waiting to hurt us.

I don't think that copy.py relies on this behavior (even after looking at the
code, but I might wrong).

My point is that we are not breaking id(); identity dicts emulated using id()
continue to work as normal.

The only assumption that we are breaking is this one, which has nothing to do
with identity dicts or id().

d = {}
d[x] = None
assert d.keys()[0] is x

As fijal points out, the semantics of this particular behavior is already
half-broken, even in CPython.  E.g., in the following example we never remove
anything from the dictionary, nevertheless a key "disappears":

x = 1003
d = {x: None}
assert d.keys()[0] is x
d[1000+3] = None
assert d.keys()[0] is x # BOOM

ciao,
Anto