Hashing arrays in Python

Question

Is it possible to hash lists?

For example, I know that hashes of tuples are possible:

>>> hash((1,2,3,4,5,6))
-319527650


        

Answer 1

Just try it:

>>> hash((1,2,3))
2528502973977326415
>>> hash([1,2,3])
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: unhashable type: 'list'
>>> hash(frozenset((1,2,3)))
-7699079583225461316
>>> hash(set((1,2,3)))
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: unhashable type: 'set'

So you can get hash of tuple and frozenset since the are immutable, and you can't do it for list and set because they are mutable.

Answer 2

Python doesn't allow you to use mutable data as keys in dictionaries, because changes after insertion would make the object un-findable. You can use tuples as keys.

Answer 3

If you really need to use a list as a dictionary key, try converting it to a string first.
my_list = str(my_list)