Namedtuple problem #32.11.d

[Neil Cerutti]

On 2017-06-06, Deborah Swanson <python at deborahswanson.net> wrote:
>> I too have sometimes started with a namedtuple and then found
>> I needed to make changes to the records. I typically abandon
>> namedtuple at this point, after only one bad experience trying
>> to work around my choice of container.
>
> I can appreciate that reaction.
>
> Guess I'm a bit of a bulldog though (right ot wrong), and the
> concept of namedtuples is so ideally suited for the Excel
> spreadsheet conversions I'm working on, I'll keep on pushing
> the boundaries to see how they can be made to work.  ;)

The namedtuple has found a happy place in my repertoire as the
return value of functions that transform external read-only
tabular data into a convenient form for lookup.

I agree pushing a language feature beyond its preferable use
cases is a good way to learn concepts and illuminate dark corners
of both my own skill and Python's features.

An Excel spreadsheet that represents a table of data is fairly
simple to map onto a Python dict. One nearly codeless way is to
export it from Excel as a csv file and then read it with
csv.DictReader.

-- 
Neil Cerutti