[Tutor] Dictionary, integer, compression

[Alan Gauld]

"Dinesh B Vadhia" <dineshbvadhia at hotmail.com> wrote

> Say, you have a dictionary of integers, are the integers stored 
> in a compressed integer format or as integers ie. are integers 
> encoded before being stored in the dictionary and then 
> decoded when read?

I can't think of any reason to compress them, I imagine they 
are stored as integers. But given the way Python handlers 
integers with arbitrarily long numbers etc it may well be more 
complex than a simple integer (ie 4 byte number). But any 
form of compression would be likely to hit performamce 
so I doubt that they would be compressed.

Is there anything that made you think they might be?

HTH


-- 
Alan Gauld
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/