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[Python-Dev] Proposal: defaultdict

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Sat Feb 18 01:12:21 CET 2006 
Ian Bicking wrote:
> It is lazily incarnated for multidict, because there is no *noticeable*
> side effect -- if there is any internal side effects that is an
> implementation detail.  However for default_factory=list, the result of
> .keys(), .has_key(), and .items() changes when you do d[some_key].

That's why I think has_key and in should return True for any key.
This leaves keys(), items(), and values(). From a pure point of
view, they should return infinite sets. Practicality beats purity,
so yes, d[k] could be considered a modifying operation.

If you look carefully, you find that many access operations also
have side effects. For example, .read() on a file not only returns
some data, but also advances the file position. Queue.get not
only returns the next item, but also removes it from the queue.

Regards,
Martin
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