DBF records API

[Tim Chase]

On 06/01/12 15:05, Ethan Furman wrote:
> MRAB wrote:
>> I'd probably think of a record as being more like a dict (or an 
>> OrderedDict)
>> with the fields accessed by key:
>>
>>     record["name"]
>>
>> but:
>>
>>     record.deleted
> 
> Record fields are accessible both by key and by attribute -- by key 
> primarily for those cases when the field name is in a variable:
> 
>      for field in ('full_name','nick_name','pet_name'):
>          print record[field]
> 
> and since dbf record names cannot start with _ and are at most 10 
> characters long I've used longer than that method names... but if I want 
> to support dbf version 7 that won't work.

It seems to me that, since you provide both the indexing notation
and the dotted notation, just ensure that the methods such as

  dbf.scatter_fields

*always* trump and refer to the method.  This allows for convenience
of using the .field_name notation for the vast majority of cases,
but ensures that it's still possible for the user (of your API) to
use the indexing method to do things like

  value = dbf["scatter_fields"]

if they have a thusly-named field name and want its value.

-tkc