py-dict-repr 0.1.0.dev0

An abstract class to enable abitrary classes to define their own dictionary representation.

Python Dictionary Representation

Description

The DictRepr class is an abstract base class that enables any subclass to define its own dictionary representation. This makes it possible to do:

dict_repr = dict(arbitrary_object)

The subclass only needs to do two things:

• Override the keys() instance method to return a list of strings
• Have the keys map to variables or properties on that object

Example

lass MyArbitraryClass(DictRepr):

    _keys = ["uppercase", "length"]

    def __init__(self, value: str):
        self._value = value

    @property
    def uppercase(self):
        return self._value.upper()

    @property
    def length(self):
        return len(self._value)

    def keys(self):
        return self._keys


if __name__ == "__main__":
    myobj = MyArbitraryClass("Hello World")
    mydict = dict(myobj)
    print("mydict type: {}".format(type(mydict)))
    pprint(mydict)

$ python3 examples/dict_repr_example.py
mydict type: <class 'dict'>
{'length': 11, 'uppercase': 'HELLO WORLD'}