returning unordered keyword arguments from a function (WAS: Are multiple return values really harmful?)

[Steven Bethard]

Fernando Perez wrote:
> Steven Bethard wrote:
[snip]
>>>>> r = object(year=2004, month=11, day=18)
>>>>> r.day, r.month, r.year
>>
>>(18, 11, 2004)
> 
> 
> Given that the necessary class is literally a 3-liner, I'm not sure a language
> extension is truly needed:
> 
> In [1]: class bunch:
>    ...:     def __init__(self,**kw):
>    ...:         self.__dict__.update(kw)
>    ...:

How do you think I generated the code above? ;)

Even at 3 lines, do you really want to rewrite those every time you need 
this functionality?  I don't see what would really be wrong with at 
least putting this in a stdlib module somewhere (collections perhaps?)

Heck, I can write a set class in only a few more lines:

 >>> class set(object):
... 	def __init__(self, seq):
... 		self._dict = dict.fromkeys(seq)
... 	def __iter__(self):
... 		return iter(self._dict)
... 	def add(self, item):
... 		self._dict[item] = None
... 		
 >>> s = set([1, 3, 3, 5, 2, 7, 5])
 >>> list(s)
[1, 2, 3, 5, 7]
 >>> s.add(2)
 >>> list(s)
[1, 2, 3, 5, 7]
 >>> s.add(8)
 >>> list(s)
[1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8]

But I don't think that's a good reason for not having a builtin set class.

The idea of a 'bunch', 'record', 'struct', 'object with attributes', 
etc. gets asked for at least a couple times a month.  It might be nice 
if that functionality was available *somewhere*, whether it be in object 
(not likely, I believe) or in a new class, e.g. 'record'.

On the other hand, I usually find that in the few places where I have 
used a record like this, I eventually replace the struct with a real 
class...

Steve