Why does Python not support record type? (i.e. mutable namedtuple)

Question

Why does Python not support a record type natively? It\'s a matter of having a mutable version of namedtuple.

I could use namedtuple._replace. But I nee

Answer 1

Here is a complete mutable namedtuple I made, which behaves like a list and is totally compatible with it.

class AbstractNamedArray():
    """a mutable collections.namedtuple"""
    def __new__(cls, *args, **kwargs):
        inst = object.__new__(cls)  # to rename the class
        inst._list = len(cls._fields)*[None]
        inst._mapping = {}
        for i, field in enumerate(cls._fields):
            inst._mapping[field] = i
        return inst

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        if len(kwargs) == 0 and len(args) != 0:
            assert len(args) == len(self._fields), 'bad number of arguments'
            self._list = list(args)
        elif len(args) == 0 and len(kwargs) != 0:
            for field, value in kwargs.items():
                assert field in self._fields, 'field {} doesn\'t exist'
                self._list[self._mapping[field]] = value
        else:
            raise ValueError("you can't mix args and kwargs")

    def __getattr__(self, x):
        return object.__getattribute__(self, '_list')[object.__getattribute__(self, '_mapping')[x]]

    def __setattr__(self, x, y):
        if x in self._fields:
            self._list[self._mapping[x]] = y
        else:
            object.__setattr__(self, x, y)

    def __repr__(self):
        fields = []
        for field, value in zip(self._fields, map(self.__getattr__, self._fields)):
            fields.append('{}={}'.format(field, repr(value)))
        return '{}({})'.format(self._name, ', '.join(fields))

    def __iter__(self):
        yield from self._list

    def __list__(self):
        return self._list[:]

    def __len__(self):
        return len(self._fields)

    def __getitem__(self, x):
        return self._list[x]

    def __setitem__(self, x, y):
        self._list[x] = y

    def __contains__(self, x):
        return x in self._list

    def reverse(self):
        self._list.reverse()

    def copy(self):
        return self._list.copy()


def namedarray(name, fields):
    """used to construct a named array (fixed-length list with named fields)"""
    return type(name, (AbstractNamedarray,), {'_name': name, '_fields': fields})