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authorGeorg Brandl <georg@python.org>2012-03-14 06:50:17 (GMT)
committerGeorg Brandl <georg@python.org>2012-03-14 06:50:17 (GMT)
commitb20a019d467daad5a6e2856a36fca4d90904f969 (patch)
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parent1725feabd0755b55bb228f8d7cc8c447cdaef988 (diff)
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Closes #14298: update section about dict implementation.
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diff --git a/Doc/faq/design.rst b/Doc/faq/design.rst
index 1521f6c..5441fd4 100644
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@@ -526,14 +526,16 @@ far) under most circumstances, and the implementation is simpler.
Dictionaries work by computing a hash code for each key stored in the dictionary
using the :func:`hash` built-in function. The hash code varies widely depending
-on the key; for example, "Python" hashes to -539294296 while "python", a string
-that differs by a single bit, hashes to 1142331976. The hash code is then used
-to calculate a location in an internal array where the value will be stored.
-Assuming that you're storing keys that all have different hash values, this
-means that dictionaries take constant time -- O(1), in computer science notation
--- to retrieve a key. It also means that no sorted order of the keys is
-maintained, and traversing the array as the ``.keys()`` and ``.items()`` do will
-output the dictionary's content in some arbitrary jumbled order.
+on the key and a per-process seed; for example, "Python" could hash to
+-539294296 while "python", a string that differs by a single bit, could hash
+to 1142331976. The hash code is then used to calculate a location in an
+internal array where the value will be stored. Assuming that you're storing
+keys that all have different hash values, this means that dictionaries take
+constant time -- O(1), in computer science notation -- to retrieve a key. It
+also means that no sorted order of the keys is maintained, and traversing the
+array as the ``.keys()`` and ``.items()`` do will output the dictionary's
+content in some arbitrary jumbled order that can change with every invocation of
+a program.
Why must dictionary keys be immutable?