[Python-Dev] The current dict is not an "OrderedDict"

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, Nov 07, 2017 at 03:32:29PM +0100, Antoine Pitrou wrote:

[...]
> > "Insertion ordered until the first key removal" is the only guarantee
> > that's being proposed.
> 
> Is it?  It seems to me that many arguments being made are only relevant
> under the hypothesis that insertion is ordered even after the first key
> removal.  For example the user-friendliness argument, for I don't
> think it's very user-friendly to have a guarantee that disappears
> forever on the first __del__.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

For many applications, keys are never removed from the dict, so this 
doesn't matter. If you never delete a key, then the remaining keys will 
never be reordered.

I think that Nick's intent was not to say that after a single deletion, 
the ordering guarantee goes away "forever", but that a deletion may be 
permitted to reorder the keys, after which further additions will honour 
insertion order. At least, that's how I interpret him.

To clarify: if we start with an empty dict, add keys A...D, delete B, 
then add E...H, we could expect:

{A: 1}
{A: 1, B: 2}
{A: 1, B: 2, C: 3}
{A: 1, B: 2, C: 3, D: 4}
{D: 4, A: 1, C: 3}  # some arbitrary reordering
{D: 4, A: 1, C: 3, E: 5}
{D: 4, A: 1, C: 3, E: 5, F: 6}
{D: 4, A: 1, C: 3, E: 5, F: 6, G: 7}
{D: 4, A: 1, C: 3, E: 5, F: 6, G: 7, H: 8}


Nick, am I correct that this was your intent?



-- 
Steve