What is the pythonic way to test whether two objects are the same, not just equal

Question

My solution has been to make the object's address into a string, which should always be unique.

Below is a case where it works both ways, comparing the objects and comparing the values of str(object_a) and str(object_b).

>>> class Thing:
>>>     def __init__(self):
>>>         self.x = 0
>>>         return
>>>
>>> a = Thing()
>>> b = a
>>> b == a
True
>>> a_string = str(a)
>>> b_string = str(b)
>>> a_string
<__main__.Thing instance at 0x16c0098>
>>> b_string
<__main__.Thing instance at 0x16c0098>
>>> a_string == b_string
True

What is the pythonic way?

Answer 1

The simple sure-fire way to check for equality is ==:

a == b

The simple sure-fire way to check to see if they have the same identity is is:

a is b

The 2nd way (is) performs the same check that you intend str(a)==str(b) to perform.