(objects as) mutable dictionary keys

[John Roth]

"Peter Maas" <peter at somewhere.com> wrote in message 
news:cs8a7e$t87$1 at swifty.westend.com...
>I have summarized the discussion about the usability of lists (and
> and other mutable types) as dictionary keys and put it into the
> Python wiki.URL: http://www.python.org/moin/DictionaryKeys.
>
> This summary might be used as a reference should the 'mutable
> dictionary keys' issue come up again in c.l.py.

The last piece has an incorrect conclusion. Lists are not safe
_because_ the cmp function is NOT a compare of id(list), but
is based on list contents, which can change at any time.

It should also be emphasized that the default instance hash
and cmp functions quoted make it impossible for two different
instances to compare equal, thus there is no reason to store them
as dictionary keys: it's simpler to make the value an attribute of
the instance and bypass the additional complexity of the dictionary.

John Roth
>
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