comparing lists

[mark mceahern]

[Alex Martelli]
> Here's a O(N) solution:
> 
> def compare_via_dicts(L, M):
>     def makebag(L):
>         dL = {}
>         for x in L:
>             x = x.lower()
>             dL[x] = 1 + dL.get(x, 0)
>     return makebag(L) == makebag(M)
> 
> Note we use a 'bag' (x -> #instances of x in list), not a set, to take care
> of repetitions so ['a', 'A'] will not appear equal to ['a', 'A', 'A'], &c.

Checking the lengths of the lists would also work to prevent ['a'] ==
['a', 'a'].  Thank you for this code.

Cheers,

// mark