[Pythonmac-SIG] cross-platform puzzle

[Charles Hartman]

This may be the wrong list for this question. Send me away if so, but I 
thought I'd try here first.

I'm building Mac and Windows versions of an application with a 
dictionary as one main data structure. A dialog box lets the user type 
a string which is then used to change the value associated with one of 
the keys, or to generate a new key-value pair. At least if the pair is 
new, on Windows the test
		if word in self.Dict:
			newvalue = self.Dict[word]
fails even though, in the debugger, the string I see for 'word' is 
identical to one of the keys now visible in self.Dict. This is in 
Windows only; the Mac version works fine.

The dialog box is making the proper return on both platforms, and the 
new key-value pair is being inserted into the dictionary. I haven't yet 
checked what happens if the key was an existing one and only the value 
is changed, and I suppose that might turn out to be the crucial 
question. But either way, I'm very puzzled to find a cross-platform 
disparity in this area. What am I missing?


Charles Hartman
Professor of English, Poet in Residence
http://cherry.conncoll.edu/cohar
http://villex.blogspot.com