[Python-ideas] `OrderedDict.sort`

[Ram Rachum]

Antoine, my concern is not efficiency but convenience. Whoever has high
efficiency requirements and wants to sort an ordered dict will have to find
their own solution anyway, and the other 99% of people who just want to
sort a 20-items-long ordered dict in their small web app could happily use
`OrderedDict.sort`.

And while we're on that subject, can we also add `OrderedDict.index`?


On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 3:29 PM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 24 Sep 2013 22:13:15 +1000
> Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:
> > On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 04:49:20AM -0700, Ram Rachum wrote:
> > > What do you think about providing an `OrderedDict.sort` method? I've
> been
> > > using my own `OrderedDict` subclass that defines `sort` for years, and
> I
> > > always wondered why the stdlib one doesn't provide `sort`.
> > >
> > > I can write the patch if needed.
> >
> > I'm not entirely sure why anyone would need an OrderedDict sort method.
> > Ordered Dicts store keys by insertion order. Sorting the keys goes
> > against the purpose of an OrderedDict.
>
> An OrderedDict is basically an associative container with a
> well-defined ordering. It's not only "insertion order", because you can
> use move_to_end() to reorder it piecewise.
> (at some point I also filed a feature request to rotate an OrderedDict:
>  http://bugs.python.org/issue17100)
>
> However, sorting would be difficult to implement efficiently with the
> natural implementation of an OrderedDict, which uses linked lists.
> Basically, you're probably as good sorting the items separately and
> reinitializing the OrderedDict with them.
>
> Regards
>
> Antoine.
>
>
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