[Python-Dev] Add a "transformdict" to collections

[Glenn Linderman]

On 9/10/2013 2:46 PM, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
>>>> > >>Which reminds one - this class should obviously have a method for
>>>> > >>retrivieng the original key value, given a matching key -
>>>> > >>
>>>> > >>d.canonical('foo') -> 'Foo'
>>> > >
>>> > >I don't know. Is there any use case?
>>> > >(sure, it is trivially implemented)
>> >
>> >
>> >Well, I'd expect it to simply be there. I had not thought of
>> >other usecases for the transformdict itself -
> Well, it is not here for dict, set, etc.

But they don't change the keys (although numbers have different 
representations on occasion).

One use of transformdict might be to allow use of non-hashable items as 
keys, by extracting an actual key from the internals of the non-hashable 
item. The key may be sufficiently unique to enable use of the dict 
structure for lookups, but it would certainly be handy to obtain the 
actual item again. Without a canonical lookup feature, one would be 
forced to also include the key as part of the value, or some such hack.

I also thought João's example was a very practical reason to have the 
canonical lookup feature, by some name or another.
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