a question about map object

[Alex Martelli]

Frank Zheng wrote:
   ...
> i think the map is a ordered-sequences, 

No, one crucial characteristic of Python's dictionaries is that they
give NO guarantee on key ordering -- that's a key part of how dicts
manage to be SO blazingly fast.

> but what should i do can keep its order be same with
> input order

Once you start with dict literal syntax, "{key:value, ..", it's
too late to do anything regarding "input order" -- that "order" is
not recorded anywhere.

If key order is important to you, then you need to maintain a
list of keys that is separate from the dict object itself.  So,
in particular, your literal syntax should be a tuple of tuples:

toft = ( (key, value),
         # etc, etc
       )

and you can form the dict object by calling dict(toft) and
keep both the dict object and the tuple of tuples around and
in sync with each other.


Alex