Python safe method to get value of nested dictiona

2019-01-07 06:07发布

问题:

I have a nested dictionary. Is there only one way to get values out safely?

try:
    example_dict['key1']['key2']
except KeyError:
    pass

Or maybe python has a method like get() for nested dictionary ?

回答1:

You could use get twice:

example_dict.get('key1', {}).get('key2')

This will return None if either key1 or key2 does not exist.

Note that this could still raise an AttributeError if example_dict['key1'] exists but is not a dict (or a dict-like object with a get method). The try..except code you posted would raise a TypeError instead if example_dict['key1'] is unsubscriptable.

Another difference is that the try...except short-circuits immediately after the first missing key. The chain of get calls does not.


If you wish to preserve the syntax, example_dict['key1']['key2'] but do not want it to ever raise KeyErrors, then you could use the Hasher recipe:

class Hasher(dict):
    # https://stackoverflow.com/a/3405143/190597
    def __missing__(self, key):
        value = self[key] = type(self)()
        return value

example_dict = Hasher()
print(example_dict['key1'])
# {}
print(example_dict['key1']['key2'])
# {}
print(type(example_dict['key1']['key2']))
# <class '__main__.Hasher'>

Note that this returns an empty Hasher when a key is missing.

Since Hasher is a subclass of dict you can use a Hasher in much the same way you could use a dict. All the same methods and syntax is available, Hashers just treat missing keys differently.

You can convert a regular dict into a Hasher like this:

hasher = Hasher(example_dict)

and convert a Hasher to a regular dict just as easily:

regular_dict = dict(hasher)

Another alternative is to hide the ugliness in a helper function:

def safeget(dct, *keys):
    for key in keys:
        try:
            dct = dct[key]
        except KeyError:
            return None
    return dct

So the rest of your code can stay relatively readable:

safeget(example_dict, 'key1', 'key2')


回答2:

You could also use python reduce:

def deep_get(dictionary, *keys):
    return reduce(lambda d, key: d.get(key) if d else None, keys, dictionary)


回答3:

Building up on Yoav's answer, an even safer approach:

def deep_get(dictionary, *keys):
    return reduce(lambda d, key: d.get(key, None) if isinstance(d, dict) else None, keys, dictionary)


回答4:

By combining all of these answer here and small changes that I made, I think this function would be useful. its safe, quick, easily maintainable.

def deep_get(dictionary, keys, default=None):
    return reduce(lambda d, key: d.get(key, default) if isinstance(d, dict) else default, keys.split("."), dictionary)

Example :

>>> from functools import reduce
>>> def deep_get(dictionary, keys, default=None):
...     return reduce(lambda d, key: d.get(key, default) if isinstance(d, dict) else default, keys.split("."), dictionary)
...
>>> person = {'person':{'name':{'first':'John'}}}
>>> print (deep_get(person, "person.name.first"))
John
>>> print (deep_get(person, "person.name.lastname"))
None
>>> print (deep_get(person, "person.name.lastname", default="No lastname"))
No lastname
>>>


回答5:

While the reduce approach is neat and short, I think a simple loop is easier to grok. I've also included a default parameter.

def deep_get(_dict, keys, default=None):
    for key in keys:
        if isinstance(_dict, dict):
            _dict = _dict.get(key, default)
        else:
            return default
    return _dict

As an exercise to understand how the reduce one-liner worked, I did the following. But ultimately the loop approach seems more intuitive to me.

def deep_get(_dict, keys, default=None):

    def _reducer(d, key):
        if isinstance(d, dict):
            return d.get(key, default)
        return default

    return reduce(_reducer, keys, _dict)

Usage

nested = {'a': {'b': {'c': 42}}}

print deep_get(nested, ['a', 'b'])
print deep_get(nested, ['a', 'b', 'z', 'z'], default='missing')


回答6:

A recursive solution. It's not the most efficient but I find it a bit more readable than the other examples and it doesn't rely on functools.

def deep_get(d, keys):
    if not keys or d is None:
        return d
    return deep_get(d.get(keys[0]), keys[1:])

Example

d = {'meta': {'status': 'OK', 'status_code': 200}}
deep_get(d, ['meta', 'status_code'])     # => 200
deep_get(d, ['garbage', 'status_code'])  # => None

A more polished version

def deep_get(d, keys, default=None):
    """
    Example:
        d = {'meta': {'status': 'OK', 'status_code': 200}}
        deep_get(d, ['meta', 'status_code'])          # => 200
        deep_get(d, ['garbage', 'status_code'])       # => None
        deep_get(d, ['meta', 'garbage'], default='-') # => '-'
    """
    assert type(keys) is list
    if d is None:
        return default
    if not keys:
        return d
    return deep_get(d.get(keys[0]), keys[1:], default)


回答7:

for a second level key retrieving, you can do this:

key2_value = (example_dict.get('key1') or {}).get('key2')


回答8:

A simple class that can wrap a dict, and retrieve based on a key:

class FindKey(dict):
    def get(self, path, default=None):
        keys = path.split(".")
        val = None

        for key in keys:
            if val:
                if isinstance(val, list):
                    val = [v.get(key, default) if v else None for v in val]
                else:
                    val = val.get(key, default)
            else:
                val = dict.get(self, key, default)

            if not val:
                break

        return val

For example:

person = {'person':{'name':{'first':'John'}}}
FindDict(person).get('person.name.first') # == 'John'

If the key doesn't exist, it returns None by default. You can override that using a default= key in the FindDict wrapper -- for example`:

FindDict(person, default='').get('person.name.last') # == doesn't exist, so ''


回答9:

After seeing this for deeply getting attributes, I made the following to safely get nested dict values using dot notation. This works for me because my dicts are deserialized MongoDB objects, so I know the key names don't contain .s. Also, in my context, I can specify a falsy fallback value (None) that I don't have in my data, so I can avoid the try/except pattern when calling the function.

from functools import reduce # Python 3
def deepgetitem(obj, item, fallback=None):
    """Steps through an item chain to get the ultimate value.

    If ultimate value or path to value does not exist, does not raise
    an exception and instead returns `fallback`.

    >>> d = {'snl_final': {'about': {'_icsd': {'icsd_id': 1}}}}
    >>> deepgetitem(d, 'snl_final.about._icsd.icsd_id')
    1
    >>> deepgetitem(d, 'snl_final.about._sandbox.sbx_id')
    >>>
    """
    def getitem(obj, name):
        try:
            return obj[name]
        except (KeyError, TypeError):
            return fallback
    return reduce(getitem, item.split('.'), obj)


回答10:

An adaptation of unutbu's answer that I found useful in my own code:

example_dict.setdefaut('key1', {}).get('key2')

It generates a dictionary entry for key1 if it does not have that key already so that you avoid the KeyError. If you want to end up a nested dictionary that includes that key pairing anyway like I did, this seems like the easiest solution.



回答11:

Since raising an key error if one of keys is missing is a reasonable thing to do, we can even not check for it and get it as single as that:

def get_dict(d, kl):
  cur = d[kl[0]]
  return get_dict(cur, kl[1:]) if len(kl) > 1 else cur