probably weird or stupid newbie dictionary question

[Stefan Behnel]

hawkmoon269 schrieb:
> some other languages' hash table (Perl's, for instance).  But FMU a
> dictionary's keys are *themselves* hashed so that a hash table exists
> that maps hashed key values to keys in the dictionary.

I guess you're mixing up the terms "hashing" and "storing in a hash-table".

When we hash a dictionary key

 >>> a = hash(key)

then we retrieve a value that is used to refer to the value that we want 
to store. Ok? :)

1>>> mydict = {}
2>>> mydict['mykey'] = 'somevalue'
3>>> mydict['mykey']
'somevalue'

What happened, was:

1) mydict becomes a dictionary

2a) mydict hashed the key 'mykey' and got an integer value. Strings know 
how to calculate a hash value for themselves, that value is retrieved via 
a call to hash('mykey')

2b) mydict then stored the value 'myvalue' at a location that the hashed 
key refers to (don't care how that is done)

3) mydict hashes the key 'mykey' and retrieves an integer. It looks at the 
location that that int refers to and finds the value 'somevalue' that was 
previously stored there. It returns that value.

A bit clearer now?

Stefan