Python dataclass from a nested dict

Question

The standard library in 3.7 can recursively convert a dataclass into a dict (example from the docs):

from dataclasses import dataclass, asdict
from typing im         


        

Answer 1

I would like to suggest using the Composite Pattern to solve this, the main advantage is that you could continue adding classes to this pattern and have them behave the same way.

from dataclasses import dataclass
from typing import List


@dataclass
class CompositeDict:
    def as_dict(self):
        retval = dict()
        for key, value in self.__dict__.items():
            if key in self.__dataclass_fields__.keys():
                if type(value) is list:
                    retval[key] = [item.as_dict() for item in value]
                else:
                    retval[key] = value
        return retval

@dataclass
class Point(CompositeDict):
    x: int
    y: int


@dataclass
class C(CompositeDict):
    mylist: List[Point]


c = C([Point(0, 0), Point(10, 4)])
tmp = {'mylist': [{'x': 0, 'y': 0}, {'x': 10, 'y': 4}]}
assert c.as_dict() == tmp

as a side note, you could employ a factory pattern within the CompositeDict class that would handle other cases like nested dicts, tuples and such, which would save much boilerplate.