[Tutor] Why is an OrderedDict not sliceable?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 01:33:17PM +0000, Albert-Jan Roskam wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Like the subject says: Why is an OrderedDict not sliceable? (From the 
> collections library). Was that an intentional omission, or a mistake? 
> [1]

Because slicing a dict makes no sense. A dict is a mapping, not a 
sequence.

d = OrderedDict()
d["cow"] = "a"
d["fox"] = "b"
d["ape"] = "c"
d["dog"] = "d"
d["bee"] = "e"

I can do a dict lookup on a key:

d["cow"]

What would a slice even mean? d[1:4] but 1, 2, 3 are not keys of the 
dict.



-- 
Steve