Re: [PATCH] Implement `equal' for hash tables

On 8/16/26 15:17, Stéphane Marks wrote:
> If hash table insertion order matters, then the equal operation would 
> need an argument to compare (nested) hash tables in an order-insensitive 
> way.  I believe the Java Jackson package's equal operation ignores 
> element order.  It's been a while in Python but IIRC, one has to perform 
> key sorting shenanigans to compare json documents parsed into a 
> dictionary.  

Nope, in Python insertion order preservation is purely a quality of life 
feature:

In [1]: {"a" : "b", "c" : "d"} == {"c" : "d", "a" : "b"}
Out[1]: True

> And then there are the data type comparator issues where 
> two json documents might be "human equal" but not technically equal; the 
> most common thing I've seen is that json has no standards for dates and 
> times so it's a mess +/- your level of control over the json documents.

Right, it's similar to case (in)sensitivity or even propertized strings:

(equal (propertize "a" 'face '(:foreground "red"))
        (propertize "a" 'face '(:foreground "green")))
t

Someone has to decide what "equals" mean. For container types, the (by 
far) most common "equals" is pairwise equality among all contained 
elements.


-- 
mvh Björn Lindqvist