deprecation of has_key?

[Steve Holden]

nicksjacobson at yahoo.com wrote:
> I haven't heard of any plans to deprecate the dictionary has_key
> method, as the "in" keyword makes it obsolete.
> 
> i.e.
> if key in dict:
> 
> instead of
> if dict.has_key():
> 
> 
> Is there some reason to keep has_key?
> 
Two words: backward compatibility. To lose that method now would break 
thousands of existing programs. The 2.4 library would probably 
experience breakage too ... let's see:

$ find /lib/python2.4/ -name "*.py" -exec grep has_key {} \; | wc -l
587

Oops!

The method might disappear in Python 3.0, when we will be allowed to 
break backward compatibility - you are correct in saying it's no longer 
necessary.

regards
  Steve
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