question about dictionaries

[Chris]

When you declare a dictionary, Python puts it in a different order than
the way you declare it:
{'<br>':'\n', '\n':''}

Is there a way to stop this behavior? I want to process this dictionary
in the order it's in, element by element. I'm running Python 2.3, if
that helps.

Thanks for any help!

 

[Paul Rubin]

Is there a way to stop this behavior? I want to process this dictionary
in the order it's in, element by element. I'm running Python 2.3, if
that helps.

You want a list not a dictionary.

 

[Brett Hoerner]

Is there a way to stop this behavior? I want to process this dictionary
in the order it's in, element by element. I'm running Python 2.3, if
that helps.

As said previously, you either want a list (which are ordered), or an
ordered-dictionary (not a Python native type, see
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/odict.html)

dict datatypes do not maintain any specific order and aren't really
meant to, they're just handy, 'fast' hash lookups.

Brett