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Equality and Coercion could be harmful
======================================
{{{#!rst
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The goal of this page is to gather all problems due to equality accepting coercion in borderline cases Equality using Coercion considered harmful?
===========================================
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{{{
sage: bool(pi == 3.14159265358979323)
True
sage: hash(pi)
2943215493
sage: hash(3.14159265358979323)
1826823505
sage: dd
{3.1415926535897932: 'approx', pi: 'exact'}
sage: {0:"exact", 0.0000000000000000000:"approx"}
{0: 'approx'}
}}}
as a consequence
{{{
sage: pii = 3.14159265358979323
sage: bool(pii == pi)
True
sage: dd = {pi: "exact"}
sage: pi in dd
True
sage: pii in dd
False
sage: pii in dd.keys()
True
Currently, Sage specifies that, upon comparing with ``a==b`` two objects `a` and `b` that do not have the same parent, a coercion is attempted to put them in the same parent. To prepare a discussion on whether that specification is viable in the long run, we are gathering here (borderline?) use cases where this behaviour is harmful.

::

    sage: bool(pi == 3.14159265358979323)
    True
    sage: hash(pi)
    2943215493
    sage: hash(3.14159265358979323)
    1826823505

However Python 2.7 documentation specifies::

    object.__hash__(self)
    Called by built-in function hash() and for operations on members of hashed collections including set,
    frozenset, and dict. __hash__() should return an integer. The only required property is that objects
    which compare equal have the same hash value;

As a first consequence of the above behavior::

    sage: {3.1415926535897932: 'approx', pi: 'exact'}
    {3.1415926535897932: 'approx', pi: 'exact'}
    sage: {0:"exact", 0.0000000000000000000:"approx"}
    {0: 'approx'}

And also::

    sage: pii = 3.14159265358979323
    sage: bool(pii == pi)
    True
    sage: dd = {pi: "exact"}
    sage: pi in dd
    True
    sage: pii in dd
    False
    sage: pii in dd.keys()
    True


More strange consequences when using UniqueRepresentation
---------------------------------------------------------

::

    sage: F1 = FiniteEnumeratedSet([0.000000])
    sage: F2 = FiniteEnumeratedSet([0])
    sage: F1 is F2
    True
    sage: F2.list()
    [0.000000000000000]
    sage:

An example showing that Sage's specifications clashes with Python's specifications
------------------------================------------------------------------------

::

    sage: S = SymmetricFunctions(QQ)
    sage: x = S.s()[5]
    sage: y = S.p()(x)
    sage: x == y
    True
    sage: hash(x), hash(y)
    (-1840429907820881728, 5178019317311573726)

It's surely syntactically nice to have x == y evaluate True after a
coercion. However enforcing that the two hash functions be the same
would be simply impossible: this would force to systematically coerce
any symmetric function to some fixed base for computing the hash
function, and we just can't afford that.

Equality using Coercion considered harmful?

Currently, Sage specifies that, upon comparing with a==b two objects a and b that do not have the same parent, a coercion is attempted to put them in the same parent. To prepare a discussion on whether that specification is viable in the long run, we are gathering here (borderline?) use cases where this behaviour is harmful.

sage: bool(pi == 3.14159265358979323)
True
sage: hash(pi)
2943215493
sage: hash(3.14159265358979323)
1826823505

However Python 2.7 documentation specifies:

object.__hash__(self)
Called by built-in function hash() and for operations on members of hashed collections including set,
frozenset, and dict. __hash__() should return an integer. The only required property is that objects
which compare equal have the same hash value;

As a first consequence of the above behavior:

sage: {3.1415926535897932: 'approx', pi: 'exact'}
{3.1415926535897932: 'approx', pi: 'exact'}
sage: {0:"exact", 0.0000000000000000000:"approx"}
{0: 'approx'}

And also:

sage: pii = 3.14159265358979323
sage: bool(pii == pi)
True
sage: dd = {pi: "exact"}
sage: pi in dd
True
sage: pii in dd
False
sage: pii in dd.keys()
True

More strange consequences when using UniqueRepresentation

sage: F1 = FiniteEnumeratedSet([0.000000])
sage: F2 = FiniteEnumeratedSet([0])
sage: F1 is F2
True
sage: F2.list()
[0.000000000000000]
sage:

An example showing that Sage's specifications clashes with Python's specifications ------------------------================------------------------------------------

sage: S = SymmetricFunctions(QQ)
sage: x = S.s()[5]
sage: y = S.p()(x)
sage: x == y
True
sage: hash(x), hash(y)
(-1840429907820881728, 5178019317311573726)

It's surely syntactically nice to have x == y evaluate True after a coercion. However enforcing that the two hash functions be the same would be simply impossible: this would force to systematically coerce any symmetric function to some fixed base for computing the hash function, and we just can't afford that.

EqualityCoercion (last edited 2017-03-13 22:32:31 by hivertwiki)