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

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, May 04, 2016 at 02:37:56PM +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> On 04.05.2016 14:15, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> > On Wed, May 04, 2016 at 01:56:56PM +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> > 
> >> Issuing a warning for this would probably help, but raising
> >> an error introduced a backwards incompatibility which is
> >> not warranted IMO, given how seldom such situations occur in
> >> practice.

I agree with you that an error is unjustified but a warning might be.


> >> For the implementation, there are two possibilities I can think
> >> of:
> >>
> >> 1. have STORE_MAP run a test for an already existing entry
> >>    and issue a warning

You have suggested that's too expensive, so I'm happy to rule that out.


> >> 2. add a final CHECK_MAP byte code to check that the number
> >>    of keys in the mapping correspond to the number of keys
> >>    added via the dict literal
[...]
> >> The second one is cheap regarding performance, but may not
> >> be accurate, since STORE_MAP may well be working on dynamically
> >> generated keys. It does work well for constants, and if we're
> >> just issuing a warning, may be good enough.
> > 
> > I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this. Are you suggesting that 
> > if I write:
> > 
> > {1: None, 1: None}
> > 
> > Python knows that it got two keys as argument, and so 
> > CHECK_MAP can determine that there is a duplicate? (i.e. that 2 keys 
> > were arguments, but the finished dict only has length 1). But if I 
> > write:
> > 
> > {x: None, x: None}
> > 
> > Python *cannot* tell that there were two keys given (since they are 
> > expressions, not constants) and CHECK_MAP can't do anything?
> 
> Well, the CHECK_MAP byte code would only check whether the number
> of assignments you are doing is equal to the number of keys
> found in the final dict. That's a very coarse test and not
> perfect. It can also not tell you which key causes the
> mismatch.
> 
> On the plus side, the extra check is a simply size check
> and doesn't have to be applied per added mapping.

Sorry MAL, perhaps I'm a bit slow tonight, but I'm still lost. {x: None, 
x: None} -- would CHECK_MAP detect that as a duplicate or not?

If the answer is "Yes", then this seems to me to be a cheap way of 
detecting the existence of at least one duplicate (but not which key was 
duplicate). That strikes me as good enough, in which case I would 
support raising a warning.



-- 
Steve