dictionary/hash and '1' versus 1

[Reedick, Andrew]

As a Perl monkey in the process of learning Python, I just stepped on
the "'1' (string) is not the same as 1 (integer) in regards to keys for
dictionaries/hashes" landmine.  Is there a good way to ensure that
numbers represented as strings or ints do not get mixed up as keys?

Example of the problem:
	>>> h2 = { 1 : ''}
	>>> print h2.has_key(1)
	True
	>>> print h2.has_key('1')
	False

The problem occurred because a method used to generate keys was
returning a string instead of a number without an explicit conversion
taking place.  And since I was using hash.get(i, default_value) to avoid
having to pair every key lookup with a hash.has_key(), no exception was
thrown when the key wasn't found.

It's fugly to wrap every key reference in str(), ex:
foo[str(some_func(i))].  It's tedious to add a has_key before every key
lookup.  And I have no real desire to stuff every hash inside a class in
order to ensure that keys are converted to strings.

Any good solutions or accepted practices to prevent the intermixing of
number strings and integers as hash keys?  A hash wrapper class seems to
be the best bet so far.



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