Newbie Question: Giving names to Elements of List/Tuple/Dict

[Alfredo P. Ricafort]

Hi Paul,

Thanks.  I think your suggestion comes close to what I am looking for
i.e. an array of objects rather than an array of strings (which is what
I original had in mind).

AL

On Fri, 2002-11-29 at 20:41, Paul Simmonds wrote:
> >I'm quite new to Python.  So far I find it to be easy to learn and
> >simple to program.  However, one thing that I missed, especially someone
> >coming from C language, is 'struct'. It seems that when you define a
> >data structure in the form of a List, Tuple, or Dict., there is no way
> >to give names to each element.
> >
> >For example:
> >
> >In C:
> >    struct Customer {
> >           char * Name;
> >           char * Address;
> >           char * TelNo;
> >    } Customer[];
> >
> >    printf("Customer Name is %s\n",Customer[i].Name);
> >
> >
> >In Python:
> >    Customer=[ [Name,Addres,TelNo], [Name,Address,TelNo],.....]
> >
> >    print "Customer Name is %" Customer[i][0]
> >
> Hmmm. I'm dealing with that sort of thing at the moment, and I find that 
> Python classes come in really useful. Try:
> 
> class Customer(object):
>     """Default Customer Definition"""
>     def __init__(self):
>         self.name=""
>         self.address=""
>         self.telno=""
> 
> This is so much more flexible than the C structure. For example:
> 
> >>>from randomobj import *
> >>>custlist=[Customer(),Customer()]
> 
> Gives you 2 Customer class instances, each with its own set of variables as 
> you defined above(not strictly correct, but good enough for simple 
> explanation):
> 
> >>>custlist.append(Customer())       # Add another customer
> >>>print custlist                    # Actually a list of 'pointers'
> [<randomobj.Customer object at 0x81545ec>, <randomobj.Customer object at 
> 0x811ebcc>, <randomobj.Customer object at 0x8155a04>]
> >>>print custlist[0].__dict__        # Access all attributes
> {'telno': '', 'name': '', 'address': ''}
> >>>custlist[0].name='Paul Simmonds'  # Accessing by name
> >>>custlist[0].telno='123456'
> >>>print custlist[0].__dict__        # Changed attributes
> {'telno': '123456', 'name': 'Paul Simmonds', 'address': ''}
> 
> This form will probably do as much as you want, but you can include more 
> functionality by wrapping the 'object' special functions. However, the 
> Python.org Reference Manual section 3.3 explains it better than I can.
> 
> HTH,
> Paul
> 
> <snip>
> >Thanks.
> >
> >AL
> >
> >--
> >http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
> 
> 
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-- 
Alfredo P. Ricafort <alpot at mylinuxsite.com>
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