[Tutor] How do I make a variable that refers to an object have the same label as the object's name ?

[tpc247 at gmail.com]

question for the Python crowd:
when creating a series of objects, where each object represents a field from
a submitted html form, how do I make variables that reference the objects be
the same as the names of the respective objects ?

For example, I have a class called Datum:

class Datum:
    def __init__(self, key, value, required=None, label=None):
        self.key = key
        self.value = value
        self.required = required
        self.label = label

and a dictionary of submitted values:

some_dict = {'applicant_full_name':'John Smith',
'applicant_address_line_1':'100 Main Street', 'applicant_city':'Anytown',
'applicant_state':'WY', 'applicant_postal_code':'55555', 'country':'US', '
applicant_email':'jsmith at server.gov', 'applicant_telephone':'555 555 5555'}

and I created a list of objects like so:

some_list = []
for key, value in some_dict.items():
    some_datum = Datum(key, value)
    some_list.append(some_datum)

so now I have a list of Datum instances called some_list, and I would like
to make it so I can refer to each respective Datum instance by its Datum.key,
e.g., applicant_full_name would refer to the Datum instance with key
'applicant_full_name' and applicant_full_name.value would give me "John
Smith."  I tried:

for x in some_list:
    some_string = "%s = %s"  % (x.key, x)
    eval(some_string)

and got:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#98>", line 4, in -toplevel-
    eval(some_string)
  File "<string>", line 1
    applicant_state = <__main__.Datum instance at 0x009745F8>
                    ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Am I doing something wrong ?
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