set and dict iteration

[Aaron Brady]

On Monday, September 3, 2012 2:30:24 PM UTC-5, Ian wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 11:43 AM, Aaron Brady <castironpi at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > We could use a Python long object for the version index to prevent overflow.  Combined with P. Rubin's idea to count the number of open iterators, most use cases still wouldn't exceed a single word comparison; we could reset the counter when there weren't any.
> 
> 
> 
> We could use a Python long; I just don't think the extra overhead is
> 
> justified in a data structure that is already highly optimized for
> 
> speed.  Incrementing and testing a C int is *much* faster than doing
> 
> the same with a Python long.

I think the technique would require two python longs and a bool in the set, and a python long in the iterator.

One long counts the number of existing (open) iterators.  Another counts the version.  The bool keeps track of whether an iterator has been created since the last modification, in which case the next modification requires incrementing the version and resetting the flag.