[Python-Dev] getting rid of default object.__hash__ (SF 660098)

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 01:04 PM 12/22/03 -0800, Guido van Rossum wrote:
>New-style classes inherit a default __hash__ from object, but this
>is incorrect if the inheriting object defines __eq__ or __cmp__.
>
>This has been reported several times; the roll-up SF entry is 660098,
>which has the proposed patch attached as newpatch.txt.
>
>I've long pondered this, and it seems the best solution is to simply
>not define __hash__ on the base object class.  After all, you don't
>inherit __eq__ or __cmp__ either; the default comparison behavior is
>supplied by intrinsic behavior of comparisons, and the default hash()
>behavior is also supplied by intrinsic behavior of hash().
>
>Does anybody have any reason why I shouldn't check in this change in
>2.4?  There's no unit test that fails if I do this.

Would this mean that instances of the following class:

class Dummy(object):
     pass

would no longer be usable as dictionary keys?  I guess the parts I'm not 
clear on are 1) whether dictionaries call the equivalent of 'hash(key)' or 
'key.__hash__()', and 2) whether 'hash(Dummy())' will do something meaningful.