python-box 1.0.0

Python dictionaries with recursive dot notation access

Python dictionaries with recursive dot notation access.

from box import Box

my_box = Box({"owner": "Mr. Powers",
              "contents": ["blue crushed-velvet suit",
                           "frilly lace crava",
                           "gold medallion with peace symbol",
                           "Italian shoes",
                           "tie-dyed socks"],
              "affiliates": {
                  "Vanessa": "Sexy",
                  "Dr Evil": "Not groovy",
                  "Scott Evil": "Doesn't want to take over family business"
              }})

my_box.affiliates.Vanessa == my_box['affiliates']['Vanessa']

my_box.funny_line = "They tried to steal my lucky charms!"

my_box['funny_line']
# 'They tried to steal my luck charms!'

my_box.credits = {'Austin Powers': "Mike Myers", "Vanessa Kensington": "Elizabeth Hurley"}
# <Box: {'Austin Powers': 'Mike Myers', 'Vanessa Kensington': 'Elizabeth Hurley'}>

Install

pip install python-box

(Don’t see a box package, but alas, can’t claim the name for some reason.)

Box is tested on python 2.6+, 3.3+ and PyPy2, and should work on other interpreters as well. If it does not install with this command, please open a ticket with the error you are experiencing!

Overview

This module provides two main classes Box and ConfigBox. They are designed to be easy drop in replacements for dictionaries, with the latter having tools for dealing with config files.

Box is designed to transparently act as a dictionary, thanks to Python’s duck typing capabilities, but add dot notation access like classes do. Any sub dictionaries or ones set after initiation will be automatically converted to a Box object. You can always run .to_dict() on it to return the object and all sub objects back into a regular dictionary.

# Will only convert outermost object
dict(my_box)
# {'owner': 'Mr. Powers', 'affiliates': <Box: {'Vanessa': 'Sexy',
# 'Dr Evil': 'Not groovy', 'Scott Evil': "Doesn't want to take over family business"}>,
# 'credits': <Box: {'Austin Powers': 'Mike Myers', 'Vanessa Kensington': 'Elizabeth Hurley'}>}

my_box.to_dict()
# {'owner': 'Mr. Powers', 'affiliates': {'Vanessa': 'Sexy',
# 'Dr Evil': 'Not groovy', 'Scott Evil': "Doesn't want to take over family business"},
# 'credits': {'Austin Powers': 'Mike Myers', 'Vanessa Kensington': 'Elizabeth Hurley'}}

This module was pulled from my other project, reusables, so it has support for a ConfigBox.

test_config.ini

[General]
example=A regular string

[Examples]
my_bool=yes
anint=234
exampleList=234,123,234,543
floatly=4.4

With the combination of reusables and ConfigBox you can easily read python config values into python types. It supports list, bool, int and float.

import reusables
from box import ConfigBox

config = ConfigBox(reusables.config_dict("test_config.ini"))
# <ConfigBox: {'General': {'example': 'A regular string'},
# 'Examples': {'my_bool': 'yes', 'anint': '234', 'examplelist': '234,123,234,543', 'floatly': '4.4'}}>

config.Examples.list('examplelist')
# ['234', '123', '234', '543']

config.Examples.float('floatly')
# 4.4

Similar Libraries

Bunch

Does not work recursively.

EasyDict

EasyDict not have a way to make sub items recursively back into a regular dictionary.

Both EasyDicts str and repr print a dictionary look alike, Box makes it clear in repr that it is a unique object.

addict

Is a default dictionary, as in it will never fail on lookup. It also goes into lists and makes those into sub objects as.