Python equivalent of PHP's compact() and extract()

Question

compact() and extract() are functions in PHP I find tremendously handy. compact() takes a list of names in the symbol table and creates a hashtable with just their values.

Answer 1

You can do this (though I would suggest only sparingly...) with the locals() function, which returns an updatable dict. Example:

$ python
Python 2.7.12 (default, Jul  1 2016, 15:12:24) 
>>> locals().update({'derek':'anderson'})
>>> derek
'anderson'
>>> 

So locals() would be "compact all" and locals().update() would be extract.

Best of luck!