Destructuring dicts and objects in Python

Question

In Javascript, I can use destructuring to extract properties I want from a javascript objects in one liner. For example:

currentUser = {
  "id": 24,
  "name": "John Doe",
  "website": "http://mywebsite.com",
  "description": "I am an actor",
  "email": "example@example.com",
  "gender": "M",
  "phone_number": "+12345678",
  "username": "johndoe",
  "birth_date": "1991-02-23",
  "followers": 46263,
  "following": 345,
  "like": 204,
  "comments": 9
}

let { id, username } = this.currentUser;
console.log(id) // 24
console.log(username) //johndoe

Do we have something similar in Python for Python dicts and Python objects? Example of Python way of doing for python objects:

class User:
    def __init__(self, id, name, website, description, email, gender, phone_number, username):
        self.id = id
        self.name = name
        self.website = website
        self.description = description
        self.email = email
        self.gender = gender
        self.phone_number = phone_number
        self.username = username
  
current_user = User(24, "Jon Doe", "http://mywebsite.com", "I am an actor", "example@example.com", "M", "+12345678", "johndoe")
    
# This is a pain
id = current_user.id
email = current_user.email
gender = current_user.gender
username = current_user.username
    
print(id, email, gender, username)

Writing those 4 lines (as mentioned in example above) vs writing a single line (as mentioned below) to fetch values I need from an object is a real pain point.

(id, email, gender, username) = current_user

Answer 1

You can use operator module from standard library as follows:

from operator import attrgetter
id, email, gender, username = attrgetter('id', 'email', 'gender', 'username')(current_user)
print(id, email, gender, username)

In case you have a dict like from your example

currentUser = {
  "id": 24,
  "name": "John Doe",
  "website": "http://mywebsite.com",
  "description": "I am an actor",
  "email": "example@example.com",
  "gender": "M",
  "phone_number": "+12345678",
  "username": "johndoe",
  "birth_date": "1991-02-23",
  "followers": 46263,
  "following": 345,
  "like": 204,
  "comments": 9
}

just use itemgetter instead of attrgetter:

from operator import itemgetter
id, email, gender, username = itemgetter('id', 'email', 'gender', 'username')(currentUser)
print(id, email, gender, username)

Answer 2

Building off of other answers, I would recommend also using Python's dataclasses and use __getitem__ to get specific fields:

from dataclasses import astuple, dataclass

@dataclass
class User:
    id: int
    name: str
    website: str
    description: str
    email: str
    gender: str
    phone_number: str
    username: str
    
    def __iter__(self):
        return iter(astuple(self))
    
    def __getitem__(self, keys):
        return iter(getattr(self, k) for k in keys)
        

current_user = User(id=24, name="Jon Doe", website="http://mywebsite.com", description="I am an actor", email="example@example.com", gender="M", phone_number="+12345678", username="johndoe")

# Access fields sequentially:
id, _, email, *_ = current_user
# Access fields out of order:
id, email, gender, username = current_user["id", "email", "gender", "username"]

Answer 3

Don't flatten the arguments in the first place. When you write a 8-ary function like you did with User, you're bound to make mistakes like passing arguments in the wrong order.

Which of the following will produce User you intend?

1. User(24, "Jon Doe", "http://mywebsite.com", "I am an actor", "example@example.com", "M", "+12345678", "johndoe")
2. User(24, "Jon Doe", "http://mywebsite.com", "I am an actor", "example@example.com", "+12345678", "M", "johndoe")

Impossible to know! If your function takes a descriptor, you do not have this problem -

class User:
  def __init__ (self, desc = {}):
    self.desc = desc # whitelist items, if necessary
  
  def __str__ (self):
    # invent our own "destructuring" syntax
    [ name, age, gender ] = \
      destructure(self.desc, 'name', 'age', 'gender')

    return f"{name} ({gender}) is {age} years old"

# create users with a "descriptor"
u = User({ 'age': 2, 'gender': 'M' })
v = User({ 'gender': 'F', 'age': 3 })
x = User({ 'gender': 'F', 'name': 'Alice', 'age': 4 })

print(u) # None (M) is 2 years old
print(v) # None (F) is 3 years old
print(x) # Alice (F) is 4 years old

We can define our own destructure as -

def destructure (d, *keys):
  return [ d[k] if k in d else None for k in keys ]

This still could result in long chains, but the order is dependent on the caller, therefore it's not fragile like the 8-ary function in the original question -

[ name, age, gender ] = \
  destructure(self.desc, 'name', 'age', 'gender')

# works the same as

[ gender, name, age ] = \
  destructure(self.desc, 'gender', 'name', 'age')

---

Another option is to use keyword arguments -

class User:
  def __init__ (self, **desc):
    self.desc = desc # whitelist items, if necessary

  def __str__ (self):
    [ name, age, gender ] = \
      destructure(self.desc, 'name', 'age', 'gender')

    return f"{name} ({gender}) is {age} years old"

# create users with keyword arguments
u = User(age = 2, gender = 'M')
v = User(gender = 'F', age = 3)
x = User(gender = 'F', name = 'Alice', age = 4)

print(u) # None (M) is 2 years old
print(v) # None (F) is 3 years old
print(x) # Alice (F) is 4 years old

Answer 4

In Python 3.10 you can do it using match:

match current_user:
    case User(id=id, username=username):
        # In this block, id = current_user.id, username = current_user.username

See https://docs.python.org/3.10/tutorial/controlflow.html#match-statements

Answer 5

You can implement an __iter__ method to enable unpacking:

class User:
  def __init__(self, **data):
    self.__dict__ = data
  def __iter__(self):
    yield from [getattr(self, i) for i in ('id', 'email', 'gender', 'username')]

current_user = User(**currentUser)
id, email, gender, username = current_user
print([id, email, gender, username])

Output:

[24, 'example@example.com', 'M', 'johndoe']

Edit: Python2 solution:

class User:
  def __init__(self, **data):
    self.__dict__ = data
  def __iter__(self):
    for i in ('id', 'email', 'gender', 'username'):
      yield getattr(self, i)

Edit 2:

Getting select attributes:

class User:
  def __init__(self, **data):
     self.__dict__ = data
  def __getattr__(self, _vals):
     yield from [getattr(self, i) for i in _vals.split('_')]

current_user = User(**currentUser)
id, email, gender, username = current_user.id_email_gender_username
id, gender = current_user.id_gender

Answer 6

In this way JavaScript has better domain of objects than Python. You also can build a method or function to replicate the functionality, but JavaScript do it really easy.

Something similar on Python could be "packing/unpacking" functionalities applied to dictionaries (JSON objects).

You can find related documentation on the internet: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/packing-and-unpacking-arguments-in-python/

Answer 7

(Ab)using the import system

Python already has a compact destructuring syntax in the form of from x import y. This can be re-purposed to destructure dicts and objects:

import sys, types

class MyClass:
    def __init__(self, a, b):
        self.a = a
        self.b = b

sys.modules["myobj"] = MyClass(1, 2)
from myobj import a, b
assert a + b == 3

mydict = {"c": 3, "d": 4}
sys.modules["mydict"] = types.SimpleNamespace(**mydict)
from mydict import c, d
assert c + d == 7

Cluttering sys.modules with our objects isn't very nice though.

Context manager

A more serious hack would be a context manager that temporarily adds a module to sys.modules, and makes sure the __getattr__ method of the module points to the __getattribute__ or __getitem__ method of the object/dict in question.

That would let us do:

mydict = {"a": 1, "b": 2}

with obj_as_module(mydict, "mydict"):
    from mydict import a, b

assert a + b == 3
assert "mydict" not in sys.modules

Implementation:

import sys, types
from contextlib import contextmanager

@contextmanager
def obj_as_module(obj, name):
    "Temporarily load an object/dict as a module, to import its attributes/values"
    module = types.ModuleType(name)
    get = obj.__getitem__ if isinstance(obj, dict) else obj.__getattribute__
    module.__getattr__ = lambda attr: get(attr) if attr != "__path__" else None
    try:
        if name in sys.modules:
            raise Exception(f"Name '{name}' already in sys.modules")
        else:
            sys.modules[name] = module
            yield module
    finally:
        if sys.modules[name] == module:
            del sys.modules[name]

This was my first time playing around with the import system, and I have no idea if this might break something, or what the performance is like. But I think it is a valuable observation that the import statement already provides a very convenient destructuring syntax.

Replacing sys.modules entirely

Using an even more questionable hack, we can arrive at an even more compact syntax:

with from_(mydict): import a, b

Implementation:

import sys

@contextmanager
def from_(target):
    "Temporarily replace the sys.modules dict with target dict or it's __dict__."
    if not isinstance(target, dict):
        target = target.__dict__
    sysmodules = sys.modules
    try:
        sys.modules = target
        yield
    finally:
        sys.modules = sysmodules

Class decorator

For working with classes we could use a decorator:

def self_as_module(cls):
    "For those who like to write self-less methods"
    cls.as_module = lambda self: obj_as_module(self, "self")
    return cls

Then we can unpack attributes without cluttering our methods with lines like a = self.a:

@self_as_module
class MyClass:
    def __init__(self):
        self.a = 1
        self.b = 2

    def check(self):
        with self.as_module():
            from self import a, b
        assert a + b == 3

MyClass().check()

For classes with many attributes and math-heavy methods, this is quite nice.

Keyword arguments

By using keyword arguments we can save on typing the string quotes, as well as loading multiple modules in one go:

from contextlib import ExitStack

class kwargs_as_modules(ExitStack):
    "If you like 'obj_as_module', but want to save even more typing"
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        super().__init__()
        for name, obj in kwargs.items():
            self.enter_context(obj_as_module(obj, name))

Test:

myobj = types.SimpleNamespace(x=1, y=2)
mydict = {"a": 1, "b": 2}

with kwargs_as_modules(one=myobj, two=mydict):
    from one import a, b
    from two import x, y

assert a == x, b == y

Answer 8

You can destruct a python dictionary and extract properties by unpacking with .values() method:

 currentUser = {
  "id": 24,
  "name": "John Doe",
  "website": "http://mywebsite.com",
  "description": "I am an actor",
  "email": "example@example.com",
  "gender": "M",
  "phone_number": "+12345678",
  "username": "johndoe",
  "birth_date": "1991-02-23",
  "followers": 46263,
  "following": 345,
  "like": 204,
  "comments": 9
}

id, _, _, _, _, _, _, username, *other = currentUser.values()

print('distructuring:', { 'id': id, 'username': username })