[Tutor] How to load a dict into a dict subclass?

[Alan Gauld]

"John" <jfabiani at yolo.com> wrote

>> > >>> class Bar(dict):
>> > >>>     pass
>> > >>>
>> > >>> foo = {'a':100, 'b':200, 'c': 300}
>> > >>> myvar = Bar()
>> > >>> myvar.update(foo)
>> > >>> myvar
>> >
>> > {'a': 100, 'c': 300, 'b': 200}
>
> Hey guru's could one of you explain why such a subclass is needed.  How 
> would
> it be used.  I'm not sure but does not the deepcopy() work as above?

This particular subclass does nothing different to the normal dict so its
never needed. But it's only a demo of how to use the standard dict
methods in a subclass.

In general you might subclass a dict if you wanted to change the
behaviour of some specific method, or maybe add some new methods.
Or maybe you wanted a dictionary that could take a list as a key...
or even take a list of keys and return a list of values.

Lots of reasons for wanting to modify the standard dict behaviour.

-- 
Alan Gauld
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/