On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 5:52 AM, Dave Angel <da...@davea.name> wrote: > I'm also puzzled. I thought that the sort algorithm used a hash of all the > items to be sorted, and only reverted to a raw comparison of the original > values when the hash collided. Is that not the case? Or is the code you > post here only used when the hash collides?
I think you are mistaken, because I don't see how that could work. If the hashes of two items are different then you can assume they are not equal, but sorting requires a partial ordering comparison, not simply an equality comparison. You cannot determine which item is less or greater than the other from the hash values alone. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
