namespace dictionaries ok?

[Ron Adam]

James Stroud wrote:
> Oops. Answered before I finished reading the question.
> 
> James

Well, the one bad side effect (or feature depending on the 
circumstance), is it makes a copy.  I wonder if there is a way to modify 
the dictionary in place with a function to do the same thing instead of 
creating a new object?

Cheers,
    Ron


> On Monday 24 October 2005 19:53, Ron Adam wrote:
> 
>>James Stroud wrote:
>>
>>>Here it goes with a little less overhead:
>>>
>>>
>>>py> class namespace:
>>>...   def __init__(self, adict):
>>>...     self.__dict__.update(adict)
>>>...
>>>py> n = namespace({'bob':1, 'carol':2, 'ted':3, 'alice':4})
>>>py> n.bob
>>>1
>>>py> n.ted
>>>3
>>>
>>>James
>>
>>But it's not a dictionary anymore so you can't use it in the same places
>>you would use a dictionary.
>>
>>       foo(**n)
>>
>>Would raise an error.
>>
>>So I couldn't do:
>>
>>    def foo(**kwds):
>>       kwds = namespace(kwds)
>>       kwds.bob = 3
>>       kwds.alice = 5
>>       ...
>>       bar(**kwds)     #<--- do something with changed items
>>
>>Ron
>>
>>
>>>On Monday 24 October 2005 19:06, Ron Adam wrote:
>>>
>>>>Hi, I found the following to be a useful way to access arguments after
>>>>they are passed to a function that collects them with **kwds.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>    class namespace(dict):
>>>>        def __getattr__(self, name):
>>>>            return self.__getitem__(name)
>>>>        def __setattr__(self, name, value):
>>>>            self.__setitem__(name, value)
>>>>        def __delattr__(self, name):
>>>>            self.__delitem__(name)
>>>>
>>>>    def foo(**kwds):
>>>>	kwds = namespace(kwds)
>>>>	print kwds.color, kwds.size, kwds.shape  etc....
>>>>
>>>>    foo( color='red', size='large', shape='ball', .... etc..)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>It just seems awkward to have to use "string keys" in this situation.
>>>>This is easy and still retains the dictionary so it can be modified and
>>>>passed to another function or method as kwds again.
>>>>
>>>>Any thoughts?  Any better way to do this?
>>>>
>>>>Cheers, Ron
> 
>