[Python-ideas] Dict-like object with property access

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:49:54 -0600
Massimo Di Pierro
<massimo.dipierro at gmail.com> wrote:
> Trying to make sure I understand where we disagree and perhaps explain my problem better. For me this has very little to do with dictionaries.
> 
> STEP 1) Today we can do this:
> 
>     class Dummy(object): pass
> 
>     d = Dummy()
>     d.something = 5
>     print d.something
> 
> Is anybody calling this un-pythonic?

Depends what you're doing with it, but having a custom class which
serves as nothing but a plain container is quite contrived in my
opinion.

> STEP 2) We can now overload the [] to make the dynamic attributes accessible in an alternative syntax:
> 
>     class Dummy(object):
>           def __getitem__(self,key): return getattr(self,key)
>           def __setitem__(self,key,value): return setattr(self,key,value)
>     d = Dummy()
>     d.something = 5
>     d['something'] = 5
>     print d.something
>     print d['something']
> 
> STEP 3) Is anybody calling this un-pythonic?

Yes. You don't need both kinds of accesses.

Regards

Antoine.