easy question on parsing python: "is not None"

[Richard D. Moores]

On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 16:15, Rhodri James <rhodri at wildebst.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:07:53 +0100, wheres pythonmonks
> <wherespythonmonks at gmail.com> wrote:

> You're not testing for equivalence there, you're testing for identity.  "is"
> and "is not" test whether the two objects concerned are (or are not) the
> same object.  Two objects can have the same value, but be different objects.
>  The interpreter can fool you by caching and reusing objects which have the
> same value when it happens to know about it, in particular for small
> integers, but this is just a happy accident of the implementation and in no
> way guaranteed by the language.  For example:
>
>>>> "spam, eggs, chips and spam" is "spam, eggs, chips and spam"
>
> True
>>>>
>>>> a = "spam, eggs, chips and spam"
>>>> b = "spam, eggs, chips and spam"
>>>> a is b
>
> False
>>>>
>>>> a == b
>
> True
>

I'm wondering if there isn't considerable predictability to that
"happy accident". Note how 1 'word' is treated versus 2:

>>> x = 'alksjdhflkajshdflkajhdflkjahsdflkjshadflkjhsadlfkjhaslkdjfhslkadhflkjshdflkjshdflkjshdfk'
>>> y = 'alksjdhflkajshdflkajhdflkjahsdflkjshadflkjhsadlfkjhaslkdjfhslkadhflkjshdflkjshdflkjshdfk'
>>> x is y
True
>>> x = 'alksjdhflkajshdflkajhdflkjahsdflkj hadflkjhsadlfkjhaslkdjfhslkadhflkjshdflkjshdflkjshdfk'
>>> y = 'alksjdhflkajshdflkajhdflkjahsdflkj hadflkjhsadlfkjhaslkdjfhslkadhflkjshdflkjshdflkjshdfk'
>>> x is y
False
>>>

(Python 3.1 on Vista.)

Dick Moores