README.rst

Dotty-Dict

Info:	Dictionary wrapper for quick access to deeply nested keys.
Author:	Pawel Zadrozny @pawelzny <[email protected]>

Features

• Simple wrapper around python dictionary and dict like objects
• Two wrappers with the same dict are considered equal
• Access to deeply nested keys with dot notation: dot['deeply.nested.key']
• Create, read, update and delete nested keys of any length
• Expose all dictionary methods like .get, .pop, .keys and other
• Access dicts in lists by index dot['parents.0.first_name']
• key=value caching to speed up lookups and low down memory consumption
• support for setting value in multidimensional lists
• support for accessing lists with slices
• support for pandas dataframe as value data type

Installation

pip install dotty-dict

• Package: https://pypi.org/project/dotty-dict/
• Source: https://github.com/pawelzny/dotty_dict

Documentation

• Full documentation: http://dotty-dict.readthedocs.io
• Public API: http://dotty-dict.readthedocs.io/en/latest/api.html
• Examples and usage ideas: http://dotty-dict.readthedocs.io/en/latest/examples.html

TODO

• add testing with other dataframe types other than pandas
• add simultaneous support for runnin all make commands from a linux or windows system
• Waiting for your feature requests ;)

Quick Example

Create new dotty using factory function.

>>> from dotty_dict import dotty
>>> dot = dotty({'plain': {'old': {'python': 'dictionary'}}})
>>> dot['plain.old']
{'python': 'dictionary'}

You can start with empty dotty

>>> from dotty_dict import dotty
>>> dot = dotty()
>>> dot['very.deeply.nested.thing'] = 'spam'
>>> dot
Dotty(dictionary={'very': {'deeply': {'nested': {'thing': 'spam'}}}}, separator='.', esc_char='\\')

>>> dot['very.deeply.spam'] = 'indeed'
>>> dot
Dotty(dictionary={'very': {'deeply': {'nested': {'thing': 'spam'}, 'spam': 'indeed'}}}, separator='.', esc_char='\\')

>>> del dot['very.deeply.nested']
>>> dot
Dotty(dictionary={'very': {'deeply': {'spam': 'indeed'}}}, separator='.', esc_char='\\')

>>> dot.get('very.not_existing.key')
None

NOTE: Using integer in dictionary keys will be treated as embedded list index.

Install for development

Install dev dependencies

$ make install

Testing

$ make test

Or full tests with TOX:

$ make test-all

Limitations

Testing status:

• In order to test with the latest pandas version, for now tested and supported python interpreter is Cython and versions tested are 3.9 and 3.10

• Tox targets passed on Windows 11 x64:

  • py3.9
  • py3.10
  • flake8

In some very rare cases dotty may not work properly.

• When nested dictionary has two keys of different type, but with the same value. In that case dotty will return dict or list under random key with passed value.
• Keys in dictionary may not contain dots. If you need to use dots, please specify dotty with custom separator.
• Nested keys may not be bool type. Bool type keys are only supported when calling keys with type defined value (e.g. dot[True], dot[False]).