[Python-ideas] dictionary constructor should not allow duplicate keys

[Terry Reedy]

On 5/3/2016 8:23 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

>> One just doesn't expect duplicate keys to not raise:
>>
>> --> dict(one=1, one='uno')
>>   File "<stdin>", line 1
>> SyntaxError: keyword argument repeated
>
> Huh, I had completely forgotten that duplicate keyword arguments raise
> a syntax error. I thought you got a runtime TypeError.

In a sense, it should be.

 >>> def f(x): pass

 >>> f(1, x=2)
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "<pyshell#12>", line 1, in <module>
     f(1, x=2)
TypeError: f() got multiple values for argument 'x'

But the case of multiple values via duplicate keywords can be and is 
caught when parsing, and parse errors are always (except maybe for ...) 
SyntaxErrors.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy