easy question on parsing python: "is not None"

[Richard D. Moores]

On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 01:32, Bruno Desthuilliers
<bruno.42.desthuilliers at websiteburo.invalid> wrote:
> Richard D. Moores a écrit :
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 16:15, Rhodri James <rhodri at wildebst.demon.co.uk>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:07:53 +0100, wheres pythonmonks
>>> <wherespythonmonks at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> You're not testing for equivalence there, you're testing for identity.
>>>  "is"
>>> and "is not" test whether the two objects concerned are (or are not) the
>>> same object.  Two objects can have the same value, but be different
>>> objects.
>>>  The interpreter can fool you by caching and reusing objects which have
>>> the
>>> same value when it happens to know about it, in particular for small
>>> integers, but this is just a happy accident of the implementation and in
>>> no
>>> way guaranteed by the language.  For example:
>>>
>>>>>> "spam, eggs, chips and spam" is "spam, eggs, chips and spam"
>>>
>>> True
>>>>>>
>>>>>> a = "spam, eggs, chips and spam"
>>>>>> b = "spam, eggs, chips and spam"
>>>>>> a is b
>>>
>>> False
>>>>>>
>>>>>> a == b
>>>
>>> True
>>>
>>
>> I'm wondering if there isn't considerable predictability to that
>> "happy accident".
>
> There is, indeed, but that's really implementation details.
>
>> Note how 1 'word' is treated versus 2:
>>
>>>>> x =
>>>>> 'alksjdhflkajshdflkajhdflkjahsdflkjshadflkjhsadlfkjhaslkdjfhslkadhflkjshdflkjshdflkjshdfk'
>>>>> y =
>>>>> 'alksjdhflkajshdflkajhdflkjahsdflkjshadflkjhsadlfkjhaslkdjfhslkadhflkjshdflkjshdflkjshdfk'
>>>>> x is y
>>
>> True
>>>>>
>>>>> x = 'alksjdhflkajshdflkajhdflkjahsdflkj
>>>>> hadflkjhsadlfkjhaslkdjfhslkadhflkjshdflkjshdflkjshdfk'
>>>>> y = 'alksjdhflkajshdflkajhdflkjahsdflkj
>>>>> hadflkjhsadlfkjhaslkdjfhslkadhflkjshdflkjshdflkjshdfk'
>>>>> x is y
>>
>> False
>
>
> CPython caches strings that happen to be valid Python identifiers. But once
> again, this is an implementation-specific optimization.

So there would be a different implementation for each operating
system? One for Windows, one for linux? Or one for Vista and one for
XP?  I'm just trying to clarify what is meant by "implementation".

Thanks,

Dick Moores