Easy "here documents" ??

[Fredrik Lundh]

Steve Holden wrote:

>> here's a rather horrid piece of code that turns a list of dictionaries
>> into a single object [that] automatically searches the dictionary chain
>> when you ask for attributes (use getattr for non-standard keys).
>>
>> def flatten_dicts(*dicts):
>>     root = None
>>     for dict in dicts:
>>         class wrapper: pass
>>         if root:
>>             wrapper.__bases__ = (root,)
>>         wrapper.__dict__ = dict
>>         root = wrapper
>>     return wrapper()
>>
>> obj = flatten_dicts(d1, d2, d3)
>>
> Iterative subclassing, yet. Yerch :-) It's sometimes amazing just how down and dirty Python will 
> let you get.

you can have a lot more fun with "class" than with "def"...

> Of course, if the mappings were all dictionaries then it would be rather simpler to just update an 
> empty dict with the outermost through to the innermost scopes.

except that if you do that, changes to the individual dictionaries won't
be visible in the "flattened" view.

</F>