Flatten nested dictionaries, compressing keys

Question

Suppose you have a dictionary like:

{\'a\': 1,
 \'c\': {\'a\': 2,
       \'b\': {\'x\': 5,
             \'y\' : 10}},
 \'d\': [1, 2, 3]}

Ho

Answer 1

How about a functional and performant solution in Python3.5?

from functools import reduce


def _reducer(items, key, val, pref):
    if isinstance(val, dict):
        return {**items, **flatten(val, pref + key)}
    else:
        return {**items, pref + key: val}

def flatten(d, pref=''):
    return(reduce(
        lambda new_d, kv: _reducer(new_d, *kv, pref), 
        d.items(), 
        {}
    ))

This is even more performant:

def flatten(d, pref=''):
    return(reduce(
        lambda new_d, kv: \
            isinstance(kv[1], dict) and \
            {**new_d, **flatten(kv[1], pref + kv[0])} or \
            {**new_d, pref + kv[0]: kv[1]}, 
        d.items(), 
        {}
    ))

In use:

my_obj = {'a': 1, 'c': {'a': 2, 'b': {'x': 5, 'y': 10}}, 'd': [1, 2, 3]}

print(flatten(my_obj)) 
# {'d': [1, 2, 3], 'cby': 10, 'cbx': 5, 'ca': 2, 'a': 1}