(Yet Another) Auto-Attribute Dict

An aadict is a python dict sub-class that allows attribute-style access to dict items, e.g. d.foo is equivalent to d['foo']. aadict also provides a few other helpful methods, such as pick and omit methods. Also, an aadict is more call chaining friendly (e.g. methods such as update return self) and is pickle'able.

Project

• Homepage: https://github.com/metagriffin/aadict
• Bugs: https://github.com/metagriffin/aadict/issues

TL;DR

Install:

$ pip install aadict

Use:

from aadict import aadict

# attribute access
d = aadict(foo='bar', zig=87)
assert d.foo == d['foo'] == 'bar'

# helper methods
assert d.pick('foo') == {'foo': 'bar'}
assert d.omit('foo') == {'zig': 87}

# method chaining
d2 = aadict(x='y').update(d).omit('zig')
assert d2.x == 'y' and d2.foo == 'bar' and d2.zig is None

# converting a dict to an aadict recursively
d3 = aadict.d2ar(dict(foo=dict(bar='zig')))
assert d3.foo.bar == 'zig'

Details

The aadict module provides the following functionality:

aadict

An aadict object is basically identical to a dict object, with the exception that attributes, if not reserved for other purposes, map to the dict's items. For example, if a dict d has an item 'foo', then a request for d.foo will return that item lookup. aadicts also have several helper methods, for example aadict.pick. To fetch the value of an item that has the same name as one of the helper methods you need to reference it by item lookup, i.e. d['pick']. The helper methods are:

• aadict.pick instance method:

  Returns a new aadict, reduced to only include the specified keys. Example:

  d = aadict(foo='bar', zig=87, zag=['a', 'b'])
  assert d.pick('foo', 'zag') == {'foo': 'bar', 'zag': ['a', 'b']}

• aadict.omit instance method:

  Identical to the aadict.pick method, but returns the complement, i.e. all of those keys that are not specified. Example:

  d = aadict(foo='bar', zig=87, zag=['a', 'b'])
  assert d.omit('foo', 'zag') == {'zig': 87}

• aadict.d2ar class method:

  Recursively converts the supplied dict to an aadict, including all sub-list and sub-dict types. Due to being recursive, but only copying dict-types, this is effectively a hybrid of a shallow and a deep clone. Example:

  d = aadict.d2ar(dict(foo=dict(bar='zig')))
  assert d.foo.bar == 'zig'

  Without the recursive walking, the .bar attribute syntax would yield an AttributeError exception because d.foo would reference a dict type, not an aadict.

• aadict.d2a class method:

  Converts the supplied dict to an aadict. Example:

  d = aadict.d2a(dict(foo='bar'))
  assert d.foo == d['foo'] == 'bar'

  Note that this is identical to just using the constructor, but is provided as a symmetry to the aadict.d2ar class method, e.g.:

  d = aadict(dict(foo='bar'))
  assert d.foo == d['foo'] == 'bar'