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gh-159184: Make the marshal order of set elements with equal dumps stable - #159197

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gpshead:marshal-set-tie-order

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@gpshead

@gpshead gpshead commented Oct 11, 2026 •

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This is the second half of gh-159184. The first half, #159196 (merged), stopped marshal from comparing set elements, which fixed the TypeError for complex NaNs. This PR fixes the order such elements are written in.

Set elements with the same dump are NaNs that are distinct objects. marshal leaves them in set iteration order, which is the order of their addresses. That is invisible unless one of them is also referenced elsewhere in the dump; then the reference lands at a different place among them from run to run:

>>> nans = [float('nan') for _ in range(3)]
>>> len({marshal.dumps([n, set(nans)]) for n in nans})
3                             # the same value every time; 1 with this PR

Change

flowchart TB
  subgraph before["main"]
    direction TB
    b1["list of (dump, index, element)"] --> b2["PyList_Sort()"]
    b2 --> b3{"run of equal dumps?"}
    b3 -- no --> b4["ordered by dump"]
    b3 -- yes --> b5["left in set order<br>= address order"]
  end
  subgraph after["this PR"]
    direction TB
    a1["array of {element, dump}"] --> a2["qsort() on the dump bytes"]
    a2 --> a3{"run of equal dumps?"}
    a3 -- no --> a4["ordered by dump"]
    a3 -- yes --> a5["w_same_set_items()"]
    a5 --> a6["already written in this dump:<br>first, in the order written"]
    a5 --> a7["floats and complex not written yet:<br>interchangeable; which one is which<br>is decided when one is referenced again"]
  end
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Elements that are containers with equal dumps, not written before the set (for example {(nan1,), (nan2,)} with one of the NaNs also used elsewhere), are still written in set order. A canonical order for that case amounts to graph canonisation. The compiler cannot produce it: every folded NaN is a new object.

Tests

ReferenceTestCase.test_nan_in_set_order checks exact bytes for sets of float and complex NaNs with references before, after and through other sets. test_nan_in_set also covers complex NaNs.

Authored using Claude, reviewed by me.

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read-the-docs-community Bot commented Oct 11, 2026 •

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Documentation build overview

📚 cpython-previews | 🛠️ Build #35080091 | 📁 Comparing a4b8ab9 against main (e878e1e)

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2 files changed
± c-api/marshal.html
± whatsnew/changelog.html

…mps stable

Set elements with the same dump (NaNs which are distinct objects) were
written in set iteration order, which depends on their addresses.  When
one of them is also referenced elsewhere in the dump, the position of
the reference among them changed from run to run.

Elements with equal dumps are now ordered by when they were first
written in this dump; floats and complex numbers not written yet are
interchangeable, and which one is which is decided when one of them is
referenced again.  This relies on the writer knowing exactly which
objects it has written (pythongh-129724).

The elements are sorted with qsort() on the bytes of their dumps,
in an array instead of a list of tuples.
@gpshead
gpshead force-pushed the marshal-set-tie-order branch from a4b8ab9 to b3dea86 Compare October 13, 2026 04:41
@gpshead
gpshead marked this pull request as ready for review October 13, 2026 04:43
@gpshead
gpshead marked this pull request as draft October 13, 2026 04:47
@gpshead
gpshead marked this pull request as ready for review October 13, 2026 05:01
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