From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2004-12-03T23:24:23+09:00
Subject: Re: ordered hash ?

Hi --

On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Robert Klemme wrote:

> 
> "David A. Black" <dblack@wobblini.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:Pine.LNX.4.44.0412030519240.28725-100000@wobblini...
> > Hi --
> >
> > On Fri, 3 Dec 2004, Robert Klemme wrote:
> >
> > > Hm, I'd prefer the "natural" order of key elements, i.e. the order
> defined
> > > by <=>.
> >
> > The problem is, though, that keys can be anything, including things
> > that don't respond to <=> or that can't be meaningfully compared with
> > other keys.
> 
> But that's okay: you'll get bitten by an exception if you insert such
> keys.  It will work perfectly for the most common key types (I guess these
> are String and maybe Fixnum).  If you want such keys then you can easily
> define your own ordering with the lambda you provide.

There may be a lot of hashes with such keys, but I wouldn't describe
that uniformity as more "natural" to a hash than the act of key/value
insertion itself.  I guess I'd prefer to see hash order be a
characteristic of every hash (without an exception raised), regardless
of the keys, and then have things like ordering by string value, etc.,
be the more specialized case.  


David

-- 
David A. Black
dblack@wobblini.net