Populating a dictionary, fast [SOLVED SOLVED]

[Hrvoje Niksic]

Steven D'Aprano <steve at REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au> writes:

>>> Someone please summarize.
>> 
>> Yes, that would be good.
>
> On systems with multiple CPUs or 64-bit systems, or both, creating and/or 
> deleting a multi-megabyte dictionary in recent versions of Python (2.3, 
> 2.4, 2.5 at least) takes a LONG time, of the order of 30+ minutes, 
> compared to seconds if the system only has a single CPU.

Can you post minimal code that exhibits this behavior on Python 2.5.1?
The OP posted a lot of different versions, most of which worked just
fine for most people.