Python OOP newbie question: C-Struct-esque constructions

[Jay O'Connor]

In article <20020812.073516.2103318776.1420 at cybermesa.com>, "Jay O'Connor"
<joconnor at cybermesa.com> wrote:

> In article <pan.2002.08.12.03.42.26.693124.11376 at example.com>, "Jonathan
> S" <python_hacker at example.com> wrote:
> 
>> hello all,
>> 
>> I'm working on a news-downloading program for myself, and I want to
>> take the list returned from the xover() method of the nntplib module
>> and put it into a class so that each item in that list can be
>> referenced by name.
>> 
>> the way I figured to do it was something like this:
>> 
>> -------------------------------
>> class xover_data():
>>     frog = ""
>>     s_frog = ""
>>     spam = ""
>>     spam_spam = ""
>>     
>>     def __init__(self, list):
>> 		frog = list[0]
>> 		s_frog = list[1]
>> 		spam = list[2]
>> 		spam_spam = list[3]
>> 
>> alist = ['ribbit', 's_ribbit', 'spam', 'spamspam'] x =
>> xover_data(alist) -------------------------------
>> 
>> that way I could access the items from x by name, like x.frog,
>> x.s_frog, etc.
>> 
>> I can do what I need to do, but this solution seems a bit, well,
>> unsophisticated.
>> 
>> Any suggestions as to how to do this more python-esque?
> 
> 
> I'm not sure if it's moer 'python-esque' but you can take advantage of
> the fact that object instance variables are held in an internal
> dictionary indexed by name and build a mapping from array elements to
> instance variables.  Here's a sample
> 
> #!/usr/bin/python
> 
> 
> class xover_data:
> 
> 	# Class variable of instance variable names, order is important
> 	VariableNames = ["frog", "s_frog", "spam"]
> 	
> 	def __init__ (self, aList):
> 	
> 		# use the class variable information to populate my instance
> 		#variables from the given list
> 
> 		for i in range (0, len(xover_data.VariableNames)):
> 			self.__dict__[xover_data.VariableNames[i]] = aList[i]
> 			
> 			
> 
> # -- Main --
> 
> testList = ["ribbit", "s_ribbit", "spam"]
> 
> data = xover_data (testList)
> 
> print data.frog

A slightly more sophistaced version is just to carry the list and allow
your accessor methods to indirect through a mapping dictionary to get
values from the list 
#!/usr/bin/python

class xover_data:

	VariableNameMapping = {"frog":0, "s_frog":1,"spam":2}
	
	def __init__ (self, aList):
		self._variableArray = aList
		
	def _getVariableNamed (self, variableName):
			if xover_data.VariableNameMapping.has_key(variableName):
				return self._variableArray[xover_data.VariableNameMapping[variableName]]
			else:
				#Should probably raise a NameError here, instead
				return None
	
	def frog(self):
		return self._getVariableNamed ("frog")
		
		
# Main

testList = ["ribbit", "s_ribbit", "spam"]

data = xover_data (testList)

print data.frog()


>From there, the next step is just to overwrite __getattr__ to do the
loopkup

#!/usr/bin/python

class xover_data:

	VariableNameMapping = {"frog":0, "s_frog":1,"spam":2}
	
	def __init__ (self, aList):
		self._variableArray = aList
		
	
	def __getattr__ (self, variableName):

			if xover_data.VariableNameMapping.has_key(variableName):
				return self.__dict__["_variableArray"][xover_data.VariableNameMapping[variableName]]
			else:
				#Should probably raise a NameError here, instead
				return None
		
# Main

testList = ["ribbit", "s_ribbit", "spam"]

data = xover_data (testList)

print data.frog

Take care,

-- 
Jay O'Connor
joconnor at cybermesa.com
http://www.r4h.org/r4hsoftware