namespace dictionaries ok?

[Ron Adam]

Simon Burton wrote:

> Yes!
> 
> I do this a lot when i have deeply nested function calls
> a->b->c->d->e
> and need to pass args  to the deep function without changing the
> middle functions.

Yes, :-)  Which is something like what I'm doing also.  Get the 
dictionary, modify it or validate it somehow, then pass it on.  I also 
find that when I'm passing variables as keywords,

      foo(name=name, address=address, city=city)

I really don't want (or like) to have to access the names with 
dictionary key as *strings* in the function that is called and collects 
them in a single object.


> In this situation I think i would prefer this variation:
> 
> class Context(dict):
>   def __init__(self,**kwds):
>     dict.__init__(self,kwds)
>   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(ctx):
>    print ctx.color, ctx.size, ctx.shape
> 
> foo( Context(color='red', size='large', shape='ball') )
> 
> 
> This is looking like foo should be a method of Context now,
> but in my situation foo is already a method of another class.
> 
> Simon.

I didn't see what you were referring to at first.  But yes, I see the 
similarity.

Cheers,
    Ron