Java's TreeSet equivalent in Python?

Question

I recently came across some Java code that simply put some strings into a Java TreeSet, implemented a distance based comparator for it, and then made its merry way into the

Answer 1

If what you want is a set that always iterates in sorted-order, this might get you most of the way there:

def invalidate_sorted(f):
    def wrapper(self, *args, **kwargs):
        self._sort_cache = None
        return f(self, *args, **kwargs)
    return wrapper

class SortedSet(set):
    _sort_cache = None

    _invalidate_sort_methods = """
        add clear difference_update discard intersection_update
        symmetric_difference_update pop remove update
        __iand__ __ior__ __isub__ __ixor__
        """.split()

    def __iter__(self):
        if not self._sort_cache:
            self._sort_cache = sorted(set.__iter__(self))
        for item in self._sort_cache:
            yield item

    def __repr__(self):
        return '%s(%r)' % (type(self).__name__, list(self))

    for methodname in _invalidate_sort_methods:
        locals()[methodname] = invalidate_sorted(getattr(set, methodname))