Can a simple a==b 'hang' in and endless loop?

[Dave Hansen]

On Wed, 18 Jan 2006 17:03:23 +0100 in comp.lang.python, Claudio Grondi
<claudio.grondi at freenet.de> wrote:

[...]
>
> >>> a = 1L
> >>> b = 1L
> >>> a is b
>False
>
>Python fails to reuse the long integer object. It would be interesting 
>to know why, because it seems to be strange, that in case of integers it 
>does (but not always and I don't know actually when it happens and what 
>it depends upon). Reusing long integers would make much more sense than 
>reusing plain integers when considering memory spent on storage.
>Hmmm...

I suspect it's a matter of practicality beating purity.  Consider

   a = 1L
   b = 10L
   ... much code ...
   c = b/5
   ... more code ...
   d = c * 3
   ... still more code ...
   e = a * 6
   ... and now the question ...
   print d is e

Do you really want the interpreter, on each long integer assignment
operation (5 in the above example), to find all the long integer
objects, perform a comparison, and re-use objects that compare equal?

Or would you rather the "is" operator alias "==" for longs?

Are either of these options really useful?

Regards,
                                        -=Dave

-- 
Change is inevitable, progress is not.