Are dicts supposed to raise comparison errors

[Peter Otten]

Robin Becker wrote:

> On 31/07/2018 09:16, Paul Moore wrote:
>> On 31 July 2018 at 08:40, Robin Becker <robin at reportlab.com> wrote:
>>> A bitbucket user complains that python 3.6.6 with -Wall -b prints
>>> warnings for some reportlab code; the
>>> example boils down to the following
>>>
>>> ##########
>>> C:\code\hg-repos\reportlab\tmp>cat tb.py
>>> if __name__=='__main__':
>>>      d={'a':1}
>>>      d[b'a'] = d['a']
>>> ##########
>>>
>>..........
>> v.1500 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32
>> Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>>> b'a' == 'a'
>> True
>>>>> b'a' == u'a'
>> True
>>>>>
>> 
>> which is basically the sort of thing that -b should warn about.
>> Specifically the quoted code would end up with a dictionary with 2
>> entries on Python 3, but 1 entry on Python 2.
>> 
>> Paul
>> 
> yes but I didn't do the compare so this warning seems entirely spurious
> and wrong. 

I disagree. Going from {"a": 1} in Python 2 to {"a": 1, b"a": 2} in Python3 
can certainly be a source of nasty bugs.

Also the interpreter cannot magically separate the comparisons directly 
"done by you" from those you triggered by running other people's code.

> It's not an error to put 1 and 1.0 and 'a' into a dict. 

With these keys you end up with a single entry in both py2 and py3.

> Should
> I get a warning if the hashes of two different types happen to clash so
> that an int needs to be checked against a string?

Not the hash, a collision is basically meaningless unless it causes a 
performance regressen. However, ensuring that all keys have the same type 
may sometimes be useful.