Dictionary of classes

[Robert Sherwood]

On Sat, 01 Dec 2001 11:45:29 -0500, Robert Sherwood wrote:

> Greetings, all.
> 
> I would like to construct and use a dictionary containing object
> references. I'm translating a binary file stream to an object structure,
> and I'd like to use the parts of the binary stream that identify the
> data as keys in a dictionary which will return an object reference which
> the main program can then instantiate and populate from the data stream.
> I know that it's possible to store objects as the value in a dictionary.
> Has anyone seen this done in the wild. Best of all would be a pointer to
> some code implementing such a feature.
> 
> Any help would be appreciated. An example of what I'm trying is attached
> below.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Robert Sherwood
> 
>     frameID = self.headerArray[:4].toString() try:
>         frame = objectDict[frameID]()
>         frame.decode(self.popFrame())
>         self.frames[frame.getFrameID()] = frame
>     except KeyError:
>         frame = unknownFrame()
>         frame.decode(self.popFrame())
>         self.frames[frame.getFrameID()] = frame
> 
> where the objectDict looks like this.
> 
> objectDict = {
>     '0001':object1,
>     '0002':object2,
>     '0003':object3,
> }

Okay. Got some help from a few subscribers. Thanks to everyone that
responded.

Apparently that code is fine, but, on reflection, it's not actually what
I want to do. Turns out I want to implement a mapping object that
wraps around a dictionary. I've implemented a very simple method for
__getitem__, that shunts key queries to the dictionary and returns the
result. Having defined the object, I now get an unsubscriptable object
error whenever I try to lookup a key. Example code follows:
----------------------------
import objectDict

frameID = self.headerArray[:4].toString() try:
    frame = objectDict[frameID]()   <---Returns "unsubscriptable Object"
    frame.decode(self.popFrame())
    self.frames[frame.getFrameID()] = frame
except KeyError:
    frame = unknownFrame()
    frame.decode(self.popFrame())
    self.frames[frame.getFrameID()] = frame

------------------------------
class objectDict:
    memberDict = {
        '0001':object1,
        '0002':object2,
        '0003':object3,
    }

    def __getitem__:
        return self.memberDict[key]