Convert namedtuple to dictionary

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, 25 Sep 2013 15:45:49 -0700, tripsvt wrote:

> Need suggestions.
> 
> Say, I have a namedtuple like this:
> 
> {'a': brucelee(x=123, y=321), 'b': brucelee('x'=123, 'y'=321)


That's not a namedtuple, that's a dict containing two namedtuples.


> I need to convert it to:
> 
> {'a': {'x':123, 'y': 321},'b': {'x':123, 'y': 321}}


Why bother? But if you must:

for key, value in some_dict.items():
    some_dict[key] = value._asdict()

ought to work.


> Follow-up question --
> 
> Which would be easier to work with if I had to later extract/manipulate
> the 'x', 'y' values? The format (dicts) above or a list of values like
> this:
> 
> {'a': ['x':123, 'y': 321],'b': ['x':123, 'y': 321]}

That's not legal Python.

The answer depends on what you mean by "extract/manipulate" the x and y 
fields. If all you are doing is looking them up, then a namedtuple is 
easiest, since that's what you've already got:

for value in some_dict.values():
    print(value.x)
    print(value.y)



But if you need to change those values, then a namedtuple is no good 
because it is immutable. In that case, you can either create a new 
namedtuple, or just use the dict-of-dicts version.



# Untested
for key, value in some_dict.items():
    kind = type(value)  # what sort of namedtuple is it?
    new = kind(value.x+1, value.y+2)
    some_dict[key] = new


-- 
Steven