Dictionary Keys question

Dustan DustanGroups at gmail.com
Thu Jan 31 17:57:07 EST 2008


On Jan 31, 7:35 am, Ben Finney <bignose+hates-s... at benfinney.id.au>
wrote:
> Dustan <DustanGro... at gmail.com> writes:
> > On Jan 30, 7:02 pm, FireNWater <kho... at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Thank you for the explanation. . . I think I now have a (foggy)
> > > understanding of hash tables. It seems to be a way to create order
> > > (an index) out of disorder (random numbers or characters) behind
> > > the scenes. .
>
> > The key thing to realize is, quite simply, don't rely on order in a
> > dictionary.
>
> The poster to which you replied is using "order" as contrasted with
> "disorder". Clearly dictionaries *do* have order that can be relied
> upon.

He was referring to the index. So was I, as in: Don't rely on the
index, because the size of the dictionary can vary, and therefore, the
index can vary, and therefore, the programmer must recognize that the
order of looping can vary. If you're referring to the actual order of
looping, then I and every good Python Guru (of which I am not one)
disagrees with you. If not, then you're confusing the different
meanings of "order" in this context.



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