What is the best way to implement nested dictionaries?

Question

I have a data structure which essentially amounts to a nested dictionary. Let\'s say it looks like this:

{\'new jersey\': {\'mercer county\': {\'plumbers\':          


        

Answer 1

I have a similar thing going. I have a lot of cases where I do:

thedict = {}
for item in ('foo', 'bar', 'baz'):
  mydict = thedict.get(item, {})
  mydict = get_value_for(item)
  thedict[item] = mydict

But going many levels deep. It's the ".get(item, {})" that's the key as it'll make another dictionary if there isn't one already. Meanwhile, I've been thinking of ways to deal with this better. Right now, there's a lot of

value = mydict.get('foo', {}).get('bar', {}).get('baz', 0)

So instead, I made:

def dictgetter(thedict, default, *args):
  totalargs = len(args)
  for i,arg in enumerate(args):
    if i+1 == totalargs:
      thedict = thedict.get(arg, default)
    else:
      thedict = thedict.get(arg, {})
  return thedict

Which has the same effect if you do:

value = dictgetter(mydict, 0, 'foo', 'bar', 'baz')

Better? I think so.