reverse dict lookup & Relation class

[Chris Rebert]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 4:30 PM, Aaron Brady <castironpi at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, this is a continuation of something that comes up now and again
> about reverse lookups on dictionaries, as well as a follow-up to my
> pursuit of a Relation class from earlier.
>
> For a reverse lookup, you just need two lookups.
> name= {}
> phone= {}
> name[ '555-963' ]= 'Joan'
> phone[ 'Joan' ]= '555-963'
>
> Though maybe the keys in 'name' should be names, instead of the values
> in it.  The variable name doesn't clarify that.  (What is more natural
> to you in reading code?  Is one obviously wrong?)
>
> phone[ '555-963' ]= 'Joan'
> name[ 'Joan' ]= '555-963'
>
> To provide for non-unique fields, the structure becomes kind of
> complicated.
>
> phone[ '555-963' ]= 'Joan'
> phone[ '555-964' ]= 'Joan'
> name[ 'Joan' ]= [ '555-963', '555-964' ]
>
> For uniform access, 'phone' can be a dict of strings to lists too.
>
> phone[ '555-963' ]= [ 'Joan' ]
> phone[ '555-964' ]= [ 'Joan' ]
>
> To add a third field, the structure becomes again more complicated.
> Either define a unique key:
>
> phone[ '555-963' ]= [ object1 ]
> phone[ '555-964' ]= [ object2 ]
> name[ 'Joan' ]= [ object1, object2 ]
> hourstocall= {}
> hourstocall[ '9a-5p' ]= [ object1 ]
> hourstocall[ '5p-11p' ]= [ object2 ]
> records= {}
> records[ object1 ]= ( 'Joan', '555-963', '9a-5p' )
> records[ object2 ]= ( 'Joan', '555-964', '5p-11p' )
>
> Or, and this is the interesting part, use the ('identificationally')
> same tuples in both mappings, since the object is only mentioned, not
> used.
>
> phone[ '555-963' ]= [ ( 'Joan', '555-963', '9a-5p' ) ]
> phone[ '555-964' ]= [ ( 'Joan', '555-964', '5p-11p' ) ]
> name[ 'Joan' ]= [ ( 'Joan', '555-963', '9a-5p' ), ( 'Joan', '555-964',
> '5p-11p' ) ]
> hourstocall[ '9a-5p' ]= [ ( 'Joan', '555-963', '9a-5p' ) ]
> hourstocall[ '5p-11p' ]= [ ( 'Joan', '555-964', '5p-11p' ) ]
>
> What's the best way to construct this class?  Or, do you have an
> argument that it could not be simpler than using a relational db?
> Brainstorming, not flamestorming.

Once you get beyond a main dict (e.g. name2phone) and one that's its
inverse (e.g. phone2name), yeah, I'd probably say you should be using
a relational DB for this. You could also use objects, but it sounds
like you really want to use SQL-like querying, which isn't well-suited
to plain objects (though it'd be fine with an ORM).

Cheers,
Chris
-- 
Follow the path of the Iguana...
http://rebertia.com