Dictionary Methods

A Bunch is a subclass of dict; it supports all the methods a dict does:

>>> b.keys()
['foo', 'hello']

Including update():

>>> b.update({ 'ponies': 'are pretty!' }, hello=42)
>>> print repr(b)
Bunch(foo=Bunch(lol=True), hello=42, ponies='are pretty!')

As well as iteration:

>>> [ (k,b[k]) for k in b ]
[('ponies', 'are pretty!'), ('foo', Bunch(lol=True)), ('hello', 42)]

And “splats”:

>>> "The {knights} who say {ni}!".format(**Bunch(knights='lolcats', ni='can haz'))
'The lolcats who say can haz!'

Serialization

Bunches happily and transparently serialize to JSON and YAML.

>>> b = Bunch(foo=Bunch(lol=True), hello=42, ponies='are pretty!')
>>> import json
>>> json.dumps(b)
'{"ponies": "are pretty!", "foo": {"lol": true}, "hello": 42}'

If JSON support is present (json or simplejson), Bunch will have a toJSON() method which returns the object as a JSON string.

If you have PyYAML installed, Bunch attempts to register itself with the various YAML Representers so that Bunches can be transparently dumped and loaded.

>>> b = Bunch(foo=Bunch(lol=True), hello=42, ponies='are pretty!')
>>> import yaml
>>> yaml.dump(b)
'!bunch.Bunch\nfoo: !bunch.Bunch {lol: true}\nhello: 42\nponies: are pretty!\n'
>>> yaml.safe_dump(b)
'foo: {lol: true}\nhello: 42\nponies: are pretty!\n'

In addition, Bunch instances will have a toYAML() method that returns the YAML string using yaml.safe_dump(). This method also replaces __str__ if present, as I find it far more readable. You can revert back to Python’s default use of __repr__ with a simple assignment: Bunch.__str__ = Bunch.__repr__. The Bunch class will also have a static method Bunch.fromYAML(), which loads a Bunch out of a YAML string.

Finally, Bunch converts easily and recursively to (unbunchify(), Bunch.toDict()) and from (bunchify(), Bunch.fromDict()) a normal dict, making it easy to cleanly serialize them in other formats.

Miscellaneous

• It is safe to import * from this module. You’ll get: Bunch, bunchify, and unbunchify.

• Ample doctests:

  $ python -m bunch.test
  $ python -m bunch.test -v | tail -n22
  1 items had no tests:
      bunch.fromYAML
  16 items passed all tests:
     8 tests in bunch
    13 tests in bunch.Bunch
     7 tests in bunch.Bunch.__contains__
     4 tests in bunch.Bunch.__delattr__
     7 tests in bunch.Bunch.__getattr__
     3 tests in bunch.Bunch.__repr__
     5 tests in bunch.Bunch.__setattr__
     2 tests in bunch.Bunch.fromDict
     2 tests in bunch.Bunch.toDict
     5 tests in bunch.bunchify
     2 tests in bunch.from_yaml
     3 tests in bunch.toJSON
     6 tests in bunch.toYAML
     3 tests in bunch.to_yaml
     3 tests in bunch.to_yaml_safe
     4 tests in bunch.unbunchify
  77 tests in 17 items.
  77 passed and 0 failed.
  Test passed.

Feedback

Open a ticket / fork the project on GitHub, or send me an email at dsc@less.ly.