is implemented with id ?

[88888 Dihedral]

On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 10:41:19 PM UTC+8, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Wed, 05 Sep 2012 10:00:09 -0400, Dave Angel wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> > On 09/05/2012 09:19 AM, Franck Ditter wrote:
> 
> >> Thanks to all, but :
> 
> >> - I should have said that I work with Python 3. Does that matter ? -
> 
> >> May I reformulate the queston : "a is b" and "id(a) == id(b)"
> 
> >>   both mean : "a et b share the same physical address". Is that True ?
> 
> >> Thanks,
> 
> > 
> 
> > No, id() has nothing to do with physical address.  The Python language
> 
> > does not specify anything about physical addresses.  Some
> 
> > implementations may happen to use physical addresses, others arbitrary
> 
> > integers.  And they may reuse such integers, or not.  Up to the
> 
> > implementation.
> 
> 
> 
> True. In principle, some day there might be a version of Python that runs 
> 
> on some exotic quantum computer where the very concept of "physical 
> 
> address" is meaningless. Or some sort of peptide or DNA computer, where 
> 
> the calculations are performed via molecular interactions rather than by 
> 
> flipping bits in fixed memory locations.
> 
> 
> 
> But less exotically, Frank isn't entirely wrong. With current day 
> 
> computers, it is reasonable to say that any object has exactly one 
> 
> physical location at any time. In Jython, objects can move around; in 
> 
> CPython, they can't. But at any moment, any object has a specific 
> 
> location, and no other object can have that same location. Two objects 
> 
> cannot both be at the same memory address at the same time.
> 
> 
> 
> So, for current day computers at least, it is reasonable to say that 
> 
> "a is b" implies that a and b are the same object at a single location.
> 
> 
> 
> The second half of the question is more complex:
> 
> 
> 
> "id(a) == id(b)" *only* implies that a and b are the same object at the 
> 
> same location if they exist at the same time. If they don't exist at the 
> 
> same time, then you can't conclude anything.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Steven
The function id(x) might not be implemented 
as an address in the user space. 

Do we need to distinguish archived objets and 
objects in the memory?