String formatting with nested dictionaries

[Gabriel Genellina]

At Thursday 24/8/2006 13:22, linnorm at gmail.com wrote:

>I've got a bit of code which has a dictionary nested within another
>dictionary.  I'm trying to print out specific values from the inner
>dict in a formatted string and I'm running into a roadblock.  I can't
>figure out how to get a value from the inner dict into the string.  To
>make this even more complicated this is being compiled into a large
>string including other parts of the outer dict.
>
>mydict = {'inner_dict':{'Value1':1, 'Value2':2}, 'foo':'bar',
>'Hammer':'nails'}
>
>print "foo is set to %(foo)s - Value One is: %(inner_dict['Value1'])s
>and Value Two is: %(inner_dict['Value2'])s -- Hammers are used to pound
>in %(Hammer)s" % mydict
>
>The above fails looking for a key named 'inner_dict['Value1']' which
>doesn't exist.

I can think of two ways:

a) Flatten your dictionary. That is, move the contents of inner_dict 
onto the outer dict:
mydict.update(mydict['inner_dict'])
Then use single names for interpolation

b) Do the interpolation in two steps.

template = "foo is set to %(foo)s - Value One is: %(Value1)s
and Value Two is: %(Value2)s -- Hammers are used to pound
in %(Hammer)s"
output = template % mydict['inner_dict']
output = output % mydict

Both methods assume that the inner dict takes precedence in case of 
name clashes; reverse the order if you want the opposite.


Gabriel Genellina
Softlab SRL 


	
	
		
__________________________________________________
Preguntá. Respondé. Descubrí.
Todo lo que querías saber, y lo que ni imaginabas,
está en Yahoo! Respuestas (Beta).
¡Probalo ya! 
http://www.yahoo.com.ar/respuestas