convert dictionary entries into variables - python

Question

Is there a pythonic way to assign the values of a dictionary to its keys, in order to convert the dictionary entries into variables? I tried this out:

>&g         


        

Answer 1

You already have a perfectly good dictionary. Just use that. If you know what the keys are going to be, and you're absolutely sure this is a reasonable idea, you can do something like

a, b = d['a'], d['b']

but most of the time, you should just use the dictionary. (If using the dictionary is awkward, you are probably not organizing your data well; ask for help reorganizing it.)

Answer 2

This was what I was looking for:

>>> d = {'a':1, 'b':2}
>>> for key,val in d.items():
        exec(key + '=val')

Answer 3

Use pandas:

import pandas as pd
var=pd.Series({'a':1, 'b':2})
#update both keys and variables
var.a=3
print(var.a,var['a'])

Answer 4

Consider the "Bunch" solution in Python: load variables in a dict into namespace. Your variables end up as part of a new object, not locals, but you can treat them as variables instead of dict entries.

class Bunch(object):
    def __init__(self, adict):
        self.__dict__.update(adict)

d = {'a':1, 'b':2}
vars = Bunch(d)
print vars.a, vars.b

Answer 5

you can use operator.itemgetter

>>> from operator import itemgetter
>>> d = {'a':1, 'b':2}
>>> a, b = itemgetter('a', 'b')(d)
>>> a
1
>>> b
2

Answer 6

You can do it in a single line with:

>>> d = {'a': 1, 'b': 2}
>>> locals().update(d)
>>> a
1

However, you should be careful with how Python may optimize locals/globals access when using this trick.

Note

I think editing locals() like that is generally a bad idea. If you think globals() is a better alternative, think it twice! :-D

Instead, I would rather always use a namespace.

With Python 3 you can:

>>> from types import SimpleNamespace    
>>> d = {'a': 1, 'b': 2}
>>> n = SimpleNamespace(**d)
>>> n.a
1

If you are stuck with Python 2 or if you need to use some features missing in types.SimpleNamespace, you can also:

>>> from argparse import Namespace    
>>> d = {'a': 1, 'b': 2}
>>> n = Namespace(**d)
>>> n.a
1

If you are not expecting to modify your data, you may as well consider using collections.namedtuple, also available in Python 3.