Using a Python Dictionary as a Key (Non-nested)

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If you have a really immutable dictionary (although it isn’t clear to me why you don’t just use a list of pairs: e.g. [('content-type', 'text/plain'), ('host', 'example.com')]), then you may convert your dict into:

  1. A tuple of pairs. You’ve already done that in your question. A tuple is required instead of list because the results rely on the ordering and the immutability of the elements.

    >>> tuple(sorted(a.items()))

  2. A frozen set. It is a more suitable approach from the mathematical point of view, as it requires only the equality relation on the elements of your immutable dict, while the first approach requires the ordering relation besides equality.

    >>> frozenset(a.items())

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