Creation

An empty AttrDict can be created with:

a = AttrDict()

Or, you can pass an existing dict (or other type of Mapping object):

a = AttrDict({'foo': 'bar'})

NOTE: Unlike dict, AttrDict will not clone on creation. AttrDict’s internal dict will be the same instance as the dict passed in.

Access

AttrDict can be used exactly like a normal dict:

> a = AttrDict()
> a['foo'] = 'bar'
> a['foo']
'bar'
> '{foo}'.format(**a)
'bar'
> del a['foo']
> a.get('foo', 'default')
'default'

AttrDict can also have it’s keys manipulated as attributes to the object:

> a = AttrDict()
> a.foo = 'bar'
> a.foo
'bar'
> del a.foo

Both methods operate on the same underlying object, so operations are interchangeable. The only difference between the two methods is that where dict-style access would return a dict, attribute-style access will return an AttrDict. This allows recursive attribute-style access:

> a = AttrDict({'foo': {'bar': 'baz'}})
> a.foo.bar
'baz'
> a['foo'].bar
AttributeError: 'dict' object has no attribute 'bar'

There are some valid keys that cannot be accessed as attributes. To be accessed as an attribute, a key must:

• be a string

• start with an alphabetic character

• be comprised solely of alphanumeric characters and underscores

• not map to an existing attribute name (e.g., get, items)

To access these attributes while retaining an AttrDict wrapper (or to dynamically access any key as an attribute):

> a = AttrDict({'_foo': {'bar': 'baz'}})
> a('_foo').bar
'baz'

Merging

AttrDicts can be merged with eachother or other dict objects using the + operator. For conflicting keys, the right dict’s value will be preferred, but in the case of two dictionary values, they will be recursively merged:

> a = {'foo': 'bar', 'alpha': {'beta': 'a', 'a': 'a'}}
> b = {'lorem': 'ipsum', 'alpha': {'bravo': 'b', 'a': 'b'}}
> AttrDict(a) + b
{'foo': 'bar', 'lorem': 'ipsum', 'alpha': {'beta': 'a', 'bravo': 'b', 'a': 'b'}}

NOTE: AttrDict’s add is not idempotent, a + b != b + a:

> a = {'foo': 'bar', 'alpha': {'beta': 'b', 'a': 0}}
> b = {'lorem': 'ipsum', 'alpha': {'bravo': 'b', 'a': 1}}
> b + AttrDict(a)
{'foo': 'bar', 'lorem': 'ipsum', 'alpha': {'beta': 'a', 'bravo': 'b', 'a': }}