I'm searching for an elegant way to get data using attribute access on a dict with some nested dicts and lists (i.e. javascript-style object syntax).
For example:
>>> d = {'a': 1, 'b': {'c': 2}, 'd': ["hi", {'foo': "bar"}]}
Should be accessible in this way:
>>> x = dict2obj(d)
>>> x.a
1
>>> x.b.c
2
>>> x.d[1].foo
bar
I think, this is not possible without recursion, but what would be a nice way to get an object style for dicts?
In 2021, use pydantic BaseModel - will convert nested dicts and nested json objects to python objects and vice versa:
https://pydantic-docs.helpmanual.io/usage/models/
>>> class Foo(BaseModel):
... count: int
... size: float = None
...
>>>
>>> class Bar(BaseModel):
... apple = 'x'
... banana = 'y'
...
>>>
>>> class Spam(BaseModel):
... foo: Foo
... bars: List[Bar]
...
>>>
>>> m = Spam(foo={'count': 4}, bars=[{'apple': 'x1'}, {'apple': 'x2'}])
Object to dict
>>> print(m.dict())
{'foo': {'count': 4, 'size': None}, 'bars': [{'apple': 'x1', 'banana': 'y'}, {'apple': 'x2', 'banana': 'y'}]}
Object to JSON
>>> print(m.json())
{"foo": {"count": 4, "size": null}, "bars": [{"apple": "x1", "banana": "y"}, {"apple": "x2", "banana": "y"}]}
Dict to object
>>> spam = Spam.parse_obj({'foo': {'count': 4, 'size': None}, 'bars': [{'apple': 'x1', 'banana': 'y'}, {'apple': 'x2', 'banana': 'y2'}]})
>>> spam
Spam(foo=Foo(count=4, size=None), bars=[Bar(apple='x1', banana='y'), Bar(apple='x2', banana='y2')])
JSON to object
>>> spam = Spam.parse_raw('{"foo": {"count": 4, "size": null}, "bars": [{"apple": "x1", "banana": "y"}, {"apple": "x2", "banana": "y"}]}')
>>> spam
Spam(foo=Foo(count=4, size=None), bars=[Bar(apple='x1', banana='y'), Bar(apple='x2', banana='y')])
Typically you want to mirror dict hierarchy into your object but not list or tuples which are typically at lowest level. So this is how I did this:
class defDictToObject(object):
def __init__(self, myDict):
for key, value in myDict.items():
if type(value) == dict:
setattr(self, key, defDictToObject(value))
else:
setattr(self, key, value)
So we do:
myDict = { 'a': 1,
'b': {
'b1': {'x': 1,
'y': 2} },
'c': ['hi', 'bar']
}
and get:
x.b.b1.x 1
x.c ['hi', 'bar']
I know there's already a lot of answers here already and I'm late to the party but this method will recursively and 'in place' convert a dictionary to an object-like structure... Works in 3.x.x
def dictToObject(d):
for k,v in d.items():
if isinstance(v, dict):
d[k] = dictToObject(v)
return namedtuple('object', d.keys())(*d.values())
# Dictionary created from JSON file
d = {
'primaryKey': 'id',
'metadata':
{
'rows': 0,
'lastID': 0
},
'columns':
{
'col2': {
'dataType': 'string',
'name': 'addressLine1'
},
'col1': {
'datatype': 'string',
'name': 'postcode'
},
'col3': {
'dataType': 'string',
'name': 'addressLine2'
},
'col0': {
'datatype': 'integer',
'name': 'id'
},
'col4': {
'dataType': 'string',
'name': 'contactNumber'
}
},
'secondaryKeys': {}
}
d1 = dictToObject(d)
d1.columns.col1 # == object(datatype='string', name='postcode')
d1.metadata.rows # == 0
The simplest way would be using collections.namedtuple.
I find the following 4-liner the most beautiful, which supports nested dictionaries:
def dict_to_namedtuple(typename, data):
return namedtuple(typename, data.keys())(
*(dict_to_namedtuple(typename + '_' + k, v) if isinstance(v, dict) else v for k, v in data.items())
)
The output will look good as well:
>>> nt = dict_to_namedtuple('config', {
... 'path': '/app',
... 'debug': {'level': 'error', 'stream': 'stdout'}
... })
>>> print(nt)
config(path='/app', debug=config_debug(level='error', stream='stdout'))
>>> print(nt.debug.level)
'error'
class Dict2Obj:
def __init__(self, json_data):
self.convert(json_data)
def convert(self, json_data):
if not isinstance(json_data, dict):
return
for key in json_data:
if not isinstance(json_data[key], dict):
self.__dict__.update({key: json_data[key]})
else:
self.__dict__.update({ key: Dict2Obj(json_data[key])})
I could not find the implementation of nested dictionary to object, so wrote one.
Usage:
>>> json_data = {"a": {"b": 2}, "c": 3}
>>> out_obj = Dict2Obj(json_data)
>>> out_obj.a
<Dict2Obj object at 0x7f3dc22c2d68>
>>> out_obj.a.b
2
>>> out_obj.a.c
3
Convert dict to object
from types import SimpleNamespace
def dict2obj(data):
"""将字典对象转换为可访问的对象属性"""
if not isinstance(data, dict):
raise ValueError('data must be dict object.')
def _d2o(d):
_d = {}
for key, item in d.items():
if isinstance(item, dict):
_d[key] = _d2o(item)
else:
_d[key] = item
return SimpleNamespace(**_d)
return _d2o(data)
I wasn't satisfied with the marked and upvoted answers, so here is a simple and general solution for transforming JSON-style nested datastructures (made of dicts and lists) into hierachies of plain objects:
# tested in: Python 3.8
from collections import abc
from typings import Any, Iterable, Mapping, Union
class DataObject:
def __repr__(self):
return str({k: v for k, v in vars(self).items()})
def data_to_object(data: Union[Mapping[str, Any], Iterable]) -> object:
"""
Example
-------
>>> data = {
... "name": "Bob Howard",
... "positions": [{"department": "ER", "manager_id": 13}],
... }
... data_to_object(data).positions[0].manager_id
13
"""
if isinstance(data, abc.Mapping):
r = DataObject()
for k, v in data.items():
if type(v) is dict or type(v) is list:
setattr(r, k, data_to_object(v))
else:
setattr(r, k, v)
return r
elif isinstance(data, abc.Iterable):
return [data_to_object(e) for e in data]
else:
return data
Building on what was done earlier by the accepted answer, if you would like to have it recursive.
class FullStruct:
def __init__(self, **kwargs):
for key, value in kwargs.items():
if isinstance(value, dict):
f = FullStruct(**value)
self.__dict__.update({key: f})
else:
self.__dict__.update({key: value})
Updated with recursive array expansion on @max-sirwa 's code
class Objectify:
def __init__(self, **kwargs):
for key, value in kwargs.items():
if isinstance(value, dict):
f = Objectify(**value)
self.__dict__.update({key: f})
elif isinstance(value, list):
t = []
for i in value:
t.append(Objectify(**i)) if isinstance(i, dict) else t.append(i)
self.__dict__.update({key: t})
else:
self.__dict__.update({key: value})
You can use my way to handle it.
somedict= {"person": {"name": "daniel"}}
class convertor:
def __init__(self, dic: dict) -> object:
self.dict = dic
def recursive_check(obj):
for key, value in dic.items():
if isinstance(value, dict):
value= convertor(value)
setattr(obj, key, value)
recursive_check(self)
my_object= convertor(somedict)
print(my_object.person.name)
Looking for a simple wrapper class for dict enabling attribute-style key access/assignment (dot notation) I was not satisfied with the existing options for the reasons below.
dataclasses, pydantic, etc. are great but require a static definition of the content. Also, they cannot replace dict in code which relied on dict since they don't share the same methods and __getitem__() syntax is not supported.
Hence, I developed MetaDict. It behaves exactly like dict but enables dot notation and IDE autocompletion (if the object is loaded in the RAM) without the shortcomings and potential namespace conflicts of other solutions. All features and usage examples can be found on GitHub (see link above).
Full disclosure: I am the author of MetaDict.
Shortcomings/limitations I encountered when trying out other solutions:
dict objects are not converted to support attribute-style key accessDictdataclass)dict objects when embedded in list or other inbuilt iterableslist objects to tuple behind the scenesitems(), update(), etc. can be overwritten with obj.items = [1, 2, 3]dict objects when embedded in list or other inbuilt iterablesdict accepts all hashable objects as keysitems(), update(), etc. can be overwritten with obj.items = [1, 2, 3]obj.pop('unknown_key', None) raises an AttributeErrorNote: I wrote a similar answer in this stackoverflow, which is related.