A small proposed change to dictionaries' "get" method

[jepler epler]

My two cents:

import UserDict, copy

class DefaultingDict(UserDict.UserDict):
    def __init__(self, default=None):
        self.default = default
        UserDict.UserDict.__init__(self)

    def __getitem__(self, key):
        try:
            return self.data[key]
        except:
            self.data[key] = copy.copy(self.default)
            return self.data[key]

def _test():
    x = DefaultingDict(0)
    x[1] = 1
    print x[0]
    print x[1]

    x = DefaultingDict([])
    print x[0]
    x[0].append("item")
    print x[0]
    x[0].append("item2")
    print x[0]

if __name__ == '__main__': _test()