[Python-Dev] PySet API (original) (raw)

Barry Warsaw barry at python.org
Mon Mar 20 04:10:36 CET 2006

On Sat, 2006-03-18 at 19:22 -0500, Raymond Hettinger wrote:

> [Barry Warsaw] >> Oh, also, we have a couple of additions to the PySet C API. >> I'll work on putting together an SF patch for them over the weekend.

What are you proposing to add to the PySet API?

PySet_Clear(), PySet_Next(), PySet_Update(), and PySet_AsList().

I designed an API that was both minimal and complete. The idea was to provide direct access to fined grained functions and access the rest through the existing abstract API for PyObject and PyNumber as detailed in the Set API docs.

We use the above functions quite a bit in our embedded app, so we want them to be as efficient as possible. They should also be obvious to C programmers (e.g. using PyNumber_InPlaceSubtract() is much less obvious than PySet_Clear()).

I tried out the API to translate a number of set algorithms and found that the API was easy-to-use and sufficient as-is. There may be room for variants of the type checking macros, but I would like the rest of the C API to remain as-is unless some compelling deficiency can be shown. It is easy to expand the API later but almost impossible to take anything back once in the field.

The above mirrors what's available for dict objects, and if you are using sets for collections of objects, I believe they make the most sense.

IOW, if I have I still have a say in the matter, the patch will most likely not be accepted.

Can you explain why the additions above would not be obvious improvements?

-Barry

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