Struction 0.3.0

Pythonic, yet C-style structs.

struction

Pythonic, yet C-Style structs/unions.

Structs are similar to namedtuples, but they allow type assertion and are defined the same way as any class. Creating a struct is easy.

$ pip install struction

from struction import Struct, default, between, clamp

class MyStruct(Struct):
    # any types specified *must* be a class/type
    field_0 = int
    field_1 = str

    # you can also allow multiple types
    multi_type = int, str

    # and default values!
    with_default = int, default(10)

    with_multi_and_default = int, str, default(10)

    # it's also possible to set a specific range for fields
    with_range = int, float, between(1, 10)  # setting this to a value < 1 or > 10 will raise ValueError

    # or, values can be clamped to a range
    with_clamp = int, float, clamp(-5, 5)  # setting this to any value outside of range will clamp it

Once a struct is created, it’s fields can be changed, but they must match the given type or a TypeError will be raised. Using del on a field resets it to its default value.

It’s also possible to nest structs. Any structs that are nested will automatically be initialized.

class NestMe(Struct):
    field_0 = int
    field_1 = int


class Nester(Struct):
    abc = str
    nest = OnlyInt  # nested struct

>>> print(Nester())
# Nester {
#     abc = None
#     nest = OnlyInt {
#         field_0 = None
#         field_1 = None
#     }
# }

>>> print(Nester(nest=None))
# Nester {
#     abc = None
#     nest = None
# }

If you don’t want strict types, you can also use a TypecastingStruct. This will attempt to typecast the given value to the field’s type. If it can’t be typecasted, it will then raise a TypeError.

from struction import TypecastingStruct

class Test(TypecastingStruct):
    i = int
    f = float
    s = str
    all = float, int, str

>>> test = Test()
>>> test.i = 5.3
>>> test.f = 100
>>> test.s = {"a": 1, "b":2}
>>> print(test)
# Struct Test {
#     all = None
#     f = 100.0
#     i = 5
#     s = "{'a': 1, 'b': 2}"
# }
>>> # If multiple types are allowed for a field, the value will be
>>> # casted to the first type that doesn't throw an Exception
>>> test.all = ("a", 1, "b", 2, "c", 3)
>>> test.all
# '("a", 1, "b", 2, "c", 3)'

Note: Typecasting only works at runtime. The values still need to match their types at class definition.

Reference

These can be applied to any Struct class.

• Struct.dict() : dict with struct’s fields. {name: value, …}

• Struct.fields() : list of fields struct has.

• str(Struct) : Multi-line representation of struct.

• repr(Struct) : Single line representation of struct.