Why are there no ordered dictionaries?

[Fuzzyman]

Tom Anderson wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Nov 2005, Christoph Zwerschke wrote:
>
> > One implementation detail that I think needs further consideration is in
> > which way to expose the keys and to mix in list methods for ordered
> > dictionaries.
> >
> > In Foord/Larosa's odict, the keys are exposed as a public member which
> > also seems to be a bad idea ("If you alter the sequence list so that it
> > no longer reflects the contents of the dictionary, you have broken your
> > OrderedDict").
> >
> > I think it would be probably the best to hide the keys list from the public,
> > but to provide list methods for reordering them (sorting, slicing etc.).
>
> I'm not too keen on this - there is conceptually a list here, even if it's
> one with unusual constraints, so there should be a list i can manipulate
> in code, and which should of course be bound by those constraints.
>

I think I am now in favour of hiding hte sequence attribute.

You will be able to mutate the the keys list through :

d1 = OrderedDict(some_sequence_of_items)
keys = d1.keys()
keys.sort() # or other mutation
d1.keys(keys)

Admittedly this is a lot slower than :

d1 = OrderedDict(some_sequence_of_items)
d1.sequence.sort()

*but* it frees the squence attribute from any implementation details.

All the best,

Fuzzyman
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/index.shtml

> I think the way to do it is to have a sequence property (which could be a
> managed attribute to prevent outright clobberation) which walks like a
> list, quacks like a list, but is in fact a mission-specific list subtype
> whose mutator methods zealously enforce the invariants guaranteeing the
> odict's integrity.
>
> I haven't actually tried to write such a beast, so i don't know if this is
> either of possible and straightforward.
>
> tom
>
> --
> When I see a man on a bicycle I have hope for the human race. --
> H. G. Wells