bunch

bunch

Bunch is a dictionary that supports attribute-style access, a la JavaScript.

b = Bunch() b.hello = 'world' b.hello 'world' b['hello'] += "!" b.hello 'world!' b.foo = Bunch(lol=True) b.foo.lol True b.foo is b['foo'] True

Dictionary Methods

A Bunch is a subclass of dict; it supports all the methods a dict does:

b.keys() ['foo', 'hello']

Including update():

b.update({ 'ponies': 'are pretty!' }, hello=42) print repr(b) Bunch(foo=Bunch(lol=True), hello=42, ponies='are pretty!')

As well as iteration:

[ (k,b[k]) for k in b ] [('ponies', 'are pretty!'), ('foo', Bunch(lol=True)), ('hello', 42)]

And "splats":

"The {knights} who say {ni}!".format(**Bunch(knights='lolcats', ni='can haz')) 'The lolcats who say can haz!'

Serialization

Bunches happily and transparently serialize to JSON and YAML.

b = Bunch(foo=Bunch(lol=True), hello=42, ponies='are pretty!') import json json.dumps(b) '{"ponies": "are pretty!", "foo": {"lol": true}, "hello": 42}'

If JSON support is present (json or simplejson), Bunch will have a toJSON() method which returns the object as a JSON string.

If you have PyYAML_ installed, Bunch attempts to register itself with the various YAML Representers so that Bunches can be transparently dumped and loaded.

b = Bunch(foo=Bunch(lol=True), hello=42, ponies='are pretty!') import yaml yaml.dump(b) '!bunch.Bunch\nfoo: !bunch.Bunch {lol: true}\nhello: 42\nponies: are pretty!\n' yaml.safe_dump(b) 'foo: {lol: true}\nhello: 42\nponies: are pretty!\n'

In addition, Bunch instances will have a toYAML() method that returns the YAML string using yaml.safe_dump(). This method also replaces __str__ if present, as I find it far more readable. You can revert back to Python's default use of __repr__ with a simple assignment: Bunch.__str__ = Bunch.__repr__. The Bunch class will also have a static method Bunch.fromYAML(), which loads a Bunch out of a YAML string.

Finally, Bunch converts easily and recursively to (unbunchify(), Bunch.toDict()) and from (bunchify(), Bunch.fromDict()) a normal dict, making it easy to cleanly serialize them in other formats.

Miscellaneous

• It is safe to import * from this module. You'll get: Bunch, bunchify, and unbunchify.

• Ample doctests::

  $ python -m bunch.test -v

Feedback

Open a ticket at http://github.com/dsc/bunch or send me an email at [e-mail] .

.. _PyYAML: http://pyyaml.org/wiki/PyYAML