bhughes339/autotypedict

Dictionary-like class that automatically typecasts scalar values to standard types

autotypedict

Dictionary-like class that automatically typecasts string-like values to standard types.

Installation

Using pip

python -m pip install -U autotypedict

Usage

Importing the class

from autotypedict import AutoTypeDict

Examples

>>> d = {"foo": {"baz": "42"}, "bar": {"baz": "n/a", "qux": "true"}}

>>> AutoTypeDict(d)  # typecast every value
{'foo': {'baz': 42}, 'bar': {'baz': None, 'qux': True}}

>>> AutoTypeDict(d, ignored_keys=("baz",))  # ignore "baz"
{'foo': {'baz': '42'}, 'bar': {'baz': 'n/a', 'qux': True}}

>>> AutoTypeDict(d, ignored_keys=("bar.baz",))  # ignore d["bar"]["baz"]
{'foo': {'baz': 42}, 'bar': {'baz': 'n/a', 'qux': True}}

>>> td = AutoTypeDict()
>>> td.data = d  # updating data attribute to ignore typecasting
>>> td
{'foo': {'baz': '42'}, 'bar': {'baz': 'n/a', 'qux': 'true'}}

Caveats

Values are only typecasted when the AutoTypeDict instance is updated directly, so avoid using type-specific operations on mutable objects within the dictionary (e.g. list.append, dict.update).

If using these methods is unavoidable, call the .refresh() instance method to re-process the dictionary.

Alternatives to common type operations:

Operation	Non-typecasted	Typecasted
Append to list	td["list"].append(v)	td["list"] += [v]
Update dict	td["dict"].update({k: v})	td["dict"][k] = v
Merge dict	td["dict"].update(other_dict)	td["dict"] |= merge_dict [1]

[1]: Python 3.9 or later