[Python-Dev] decorate-sort-undecorate
Guido van Rossum
guido at python.org
Tue Oct 14 15:19:22 EDT 2003
> I would rather wrap Tim's existing code than muck with assignment logic.
> Ideally, the performance of list.sort() should stay unchanged when the
> key function is not specified.
Impossible -- the aux objects tax the memory cache more. Also the
characteristics of the data will be very different.
> Tim's original (key, index, value) idea seems to be simplest. The only
> sticking point is the immortality of PyInts. One easy, but not so
> elegant way around this is to use another mortal object for a tiebreaker
> (for example, "00000", "00001", ...). Alternatively, is there a way of
> telling a PyInt to be mortal?
I still like custom objects better.
> Besides immortality and speed, another consideration is the interaction
> between the cmp function and the key function. If both are specified,
> then the underlying decoration becomes visible to the user:
>
> def viewcmp(a, b):
> print a, b # the decoration just became visible
> return cmp(a,b)
> mylist.sort(cmp=viewcmp, key=str.lower)
>
> Since the decoration can be visible, it should be as understandable as
> possible. Viewed this way, PyInts are preferable to a custom object.
I think we should disallow specifying both cmp and key arguments.
Using both just doesn't make sense.
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)
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