[Python-Dev] {}.first[key,value,item] and {}.pop (was Re: {}.getitem())

[Guido van Rossum]

> {}.pop() sounds like the right thing given its symmetry with [].pop().
> 
> It would have the semantics that it would remove and return a random
> /item/ from the dictionary, which the implementation can make the
> "first" item for convenience purposes.
> 
> It shouldn't dictate though, that {}.pop() == dict.items().pop() or
> make any other guarantees about which item gets popped, because other
> implementations (or indeed, other mapping-conformant objects) may use
> different underlying representations that could make this inefficient.
> 
> For added symmetry, {}.pop() should take an optional argument which is
> the key of the item to remove and return.

That seems a nice touch, until you realize that [].pop() returns the
value, while {}.pop() returns a (key, value) pair.  Also: if you
already know the key, the argument that you can't do it in O(1) time
is no longer valid.  So, a -0.5.

One more concern: if you repeatedly remove the *first* item, the hash
table will start looking lobsided.  Since we don't resize the hash
table on deletes, maybe picking an item at random (but not using an
expensive random generator!) would be better.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)