[Python-Dev] Python 3.6 dict becomes compact and gets a private version; and keywords become ordered

Victor Stinner victor.stinner at gmail.com
Thu Sep 8 16:22:46 EDT 2016


Hi,

I pushed INADA Naoki's implementation of the "compact dict". The hash
table now stores indices pointing to a new second table which contains
keys and values: it adds one new level of indirection. The table of
indices is "compact": use 1, 2, 4 or 8 bytes per indice depending on
the size of the dictionary. Moreover, the keys/values table is also
more compact: its size is 2/3 of the indices table.

A nice "side effect" of compact dict is that the dictionary now
preserves the insertion order. It means that keyword arguments can now
be iterated by their creation order:

Python 3.5.1 (default, Jun 20 2016, 14:48:22)
>>> def func(**kw): print(kw.keys())
...
>>> func(a=1, b=2, c=3, d=4, e=5)
dict_keys(['c', 'd', 'e', 'b', 'a'])   # random order

vs

Python 3.6.0a4+ (default:d43f819caea7, Sep  8 2016, 13:05:34)
>>> def func(**kw): print(kw.keys())
...
>>> func(a=1, b=2, c=3, d=4, e=5)
dict_keys(['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e'])   # expected order


It means that the main goal of the PEP 468 "Preserving the order of
**kwargs in a function" is now implemented in Python 3.6:
https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0468/

But Eric Snow still wants to rephrase the PEP 468 to replace
"OrderedDict" with "ordered mapping".


For more information on compact dict, see:

* http://bugs.python.org/issue27350
* https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2016-June/145299.html
* https://morepypy.blogspot.jp/2015/01/faster-more-memory-efficient-and-more.html
*https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2012-December/123028.html


PyPy also implements the "compact dict", but it uses further "tricks"
to preserve the order even if items are removed and then others are
added. We might also implement these tricks in CPython, so dict will
be ordered as well!

--

Moreover, since Guido approved the PEP 509 "Add a private version to
dict", I just pushed the implementation.

The PEP 509 provides a C API (a dict version field) to implement
efficient caches on namespaces. It might be used to implement a cache
on builtins in Python 3.6 using Yury's opcode cache (stay tuned!).

Victor


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