id( ) function question

[Erik Max Francis]

Tim Chase wrote:
> CPython has the option to cache frequently used items, and does so for a 
> small range of ints.  It's not guaranteed behavior (or a guaranteed 
> range) so you shouldn't rely on it, but it's an efficiency thing.  In my 
> current version, it looks like it's ints from -5 to 256. YMMV
> 
> In general, if you're using "is" (and not comparing with None) or id(), 
> you're doing it wrong unless you already know the peculiarities of 
> Python's identity implementations.

Right.  Another way to do look at it is that if you're curious about 
what the value of `id` is or how the `is` operator works, the short 
version is, don't worry about them, as you won't be using them.

I'm really rather surprised at the number of questions about them. 
They're really something one does not need to worry about.

-- 
Erik Max Francis && max at alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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