[Baypiggies] strange behavior with tool inherited from dict.

[Max Slimmer]

I have a routine I got from Active State cookbook Recipe 361668 ages ago 
and have been using it without any problems for literally years. I will 
include it below.

I encountered a condition where it doesn't behave normally, but I was 
unable to create a "simple" example to show the problem, so have 
included some trace to illustrate the problem.  Note that emp shown 
below is a trimed down version of the emp that failed as I had to 
sanitize it a bit.

emp is an instance of the attribute/dictionary class shown below, and 
when I try to replace the deds member, using emp.update(a), with an 
empty dict it affects emp['deds'] but not emp.deds.

As I said I have never experienced this behavior before, and it appears 
only under some conditions.  I have been able to fix it by overloading 
the update method similar to __init__ assigning self.__dict__ = self.

Any enlightenment on why this is happening (and only sometimes)

thanks,
max

 >>> emp
{'sal.rateTyp': 'S', 'clc.fedallow': 0, 'fstnme': 'Patty', 'recnum': 54, 
'midini': u'A', 'state_': 'PA', 'deds': {34: {'DEDUCTIONAMOUNT': 10, 
'DEDUCTIONCODE': 'K', 'DEDFACTOR': None}}, 'dedsP': [], 'status': 1, 
'hertge': 2, 'dteina': datetime.date(1899, 12, 30), 'clc.wrkstate': 
'FL', 'clc.stmrtsts': 'M', 'clc.sui': '59', 'dtehre': 
datetime.date(1998, 8, 3), 'zipcde': '18042', 'gender': 2, 'payprd': 1, 
'sal.payrt1': 875.0, 'clc.fedmrtsts': 'M', 'msc.midini':
  u'A', 'taxste': u'PA', 'clc.lvstate': 'PA', 'dtebth': 
datetime.date(1976, 7, 9)}

 >>> type(emp)       # I have named this class adOBJ not attrdict as in 
original recipe.
<class 'pytools.adOBJ'>
 >>> a = dict(deds={})
 >>> emp.deds            # get via member name
{34: {'DEDUCTIONAMOUNT': 10, 'DEDUCTIONCODE': 'K', 'DEDFACTOR': None}}
 >>> emp.get('deds')     # get via dict
{34: {'DEDUCTIONAMOUNT': 10, 'DEDUCTIONCODE': 'K', 'DEDFACTOR': None}}
 >>> emp.update(a)
 >>> emp.get('deds')     # looks like deds is now empty
{}
 >>> emp.deds            # but it really isn't
{34: {'DEDUCTIONAMOUNT': 10, 'DEDUCTIONCODE': 'K', 'DEDFACTOR': None}}

 >>> ??????
	

class attrdict(dict):
     """A dict whose items can also be accessed as member variables.

     >>> d = attrdict(a=1, b=2)
     >>> d['c'] = 3
     >>> print d.a, d.b, d.c
     1 2 3
     >>> d.b = 10
     >>> print d['b']
     10

     # but be careful, it's easy to hide methods
     >>> print d.get('c')
     3
     >>> d['get'] = 4
     >>> print d.get('a')
     Traceback (most recent call last):
     TypeError: 'int' object is not callable
     """
     def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
         dict.__init__(self, *args, **kwargs)
         self.__dict__ = self


-- 
Max Slimmer
email: max at SlimmerSoft.com