How do I get a reference to a KEY value of a dictionary?

[Ben Finney]

On 31 Jul 2003 17:36:41 -0700, Andy C wrote:
> Is this a waste of time?  Because I know in python I cannot be certain
> that the argument strings that are read from files are even garbage
> collected anyway.  I could certainly do the job with duplicate
> strings, but it would seem wasteful.  I am a C programmer, and old
> habits die hard.

Python dynamically binds names ("variables") to objects; many types,
including immutable strings, will not be duplicated if an identical one
is already stored.

The upshot is: store an identical string as many times as you like,
because PYthon will simply keep references to the one string object for
each duplicate.

-- 
 \          "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to |
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Ben Finney <http://bignose.squidly.org/>