I have a Dictionary of Classes where the classes hold attributes that are lists of strings.
I made this function to find out the max number of items are in one of those lists for a particular person.
def find_max_var_amt(some_person) #pass in a patient id number, get back their max number of variables for a type of variable
max_vars=0
for key, value in patients[some_person].__dict__.items():
challenger=len(value)
if max_vars < challenger:
max_vars= challenger
return max_vars
What I want to do is rewrite it so that I do not have to use the .iteritems() function. This find_max_var_amt function works fine as is, but I am converting my code from using a dictionary to be a database using the dbm module, so typical dictionary functions will no longer work for me even though the syntax for assigning and accessing the key:value pairs will be the same. Thanks for your help!
Since dbm doesn't let you iterate over the values directly, you can iterate over the keys. To do so, you could modify your for loop to look like
for key in patients[some_person].__dict__:
value = patients[some_person].__dict__[key]
# then continue as before
I think a bigger issue, though, will be the fact that dbm only stores strings. So you won't be able to store the list directly in the database; you'll have to store a string representation of it. And that means that when you try to compute the length of the list, it won't be as simple as len(value); you'll have to develop some code to figure out the length of the list based on whatever string representation you use. It could just be as simple as len(the_string.split(',')), just be aware that you have to do it.
By the way, your existing function could be rewritten using a generator, like so:
def find_max_var_amt(some_person):
return max(len(value) for value in patients[some_person].__dict__.itervalues())
and if you did it that way, the change to iterating over keys would look like
def find_max_var_amt(some_person):
dct = patients[some_person].__dict__
return max(len(dct[key]) for key in dct)
Related
the python program that i am writing calls to an api that returns this json:
Code Output
How do i access the subdetails? When i run the .keys() it only lists those three top levels. I want to be able to get specific items, e.g. "Utility"
I've tried several solutions but none parse correctly. I have tried calling the list inside the dictionary, to no avail. Originally i thought it was a dictionary inside of a dictionary, but Python thinks its a list nested into a dictionary.
Any help would be appreciated!
keys() function only returns the keys of dictionary, so it you call keys(), it will only return the three result. The "subdetails" you are referring to are the values of those keys. For key "SUMMARY" as an example, its value is a list instead of dict (note the "[" after the key). However, the list only has a single element. This is quite common in json. To retrive "Utility", all you need to do is data['SUMMARY'][0]['Utility']
Maybe to help you understand the data structure better, call the "values()" and "items()" function to see what it returns.
Since it's a dict of lists of dicts, simply use an index of 0 to access the first item of the list if there is always only one item in each list. For example, if your JSON object is stored as variable data, then the value of Utility can be accessed with data['SUMMARY'][0]['Utility'].
So I have to create a simple program that accepts a database with a bunch of artists and their works of art with the details of the art. There is a given artist and I have to search through the database to find all the ones where they have to same artist and return them. I'm not allowed to use other built in functions nor import anything. Can someone tell me why its creating the error and what it means?
def works_by_artists(db,artists):
newlist = {}
for a in db.keys():
for b in db[artists]:
if a == b:
newlist.append(a);
return newlist
This prints out an error:
for b in db[artists]:
TypeError: unhashable type: 'list'
A dictionary can accept only some kinds of values as keys. In particular, they must be hashable, which mean they cannot change while in the dictionary ("immutable"), and there must be a function known to Python that takes the value and returns a nonnegative integer that somehow represents the integer. Integers, floats, strings, and tuples are immutable and hashable, while standard lists, dictionaries, and sets are not. The hash value of the key is used to store the key-value pair in the standard Python dictionary. This method was chosen for the sake of speed of looking up a key, but the speed comes at the cost of limiting the possible key values. Other ways could have been chosen, but this works well for the dictionary's intended purpose in Python.
You tried to execute the line for b in db[artists]: while the current value of artists was not hashable. This is an error. I cannot say what the value of artists was, since the value was a parameter to the function and you did not show the calling code.
So check which value of artists was given to function works_by_artists() that caused the displayed error. Whatever created that value is the actual error in your code.
I have a very large dictionary, like this:
d['property1']['property2'][0]['property3']['property4']['property5']['property6']
I need to get property6. What's the simplest way for me to get this value?
I was thinking something like this would work:
d.lavel6[0]['property6']
Unfortunately, there is no generic way to get value of key from nested dict based on levels (due to obvious reasons). But, you may write a function for your specific scenario in order to simplify it. For example:
def get_value_from_dict(my_dict, level, key):
return my_dict['property1']['property2'][level]['property3']['property4']['property5'][key]
I was working on a dictionary, but I came up with an issue. And the issue is, I want to be able to use more than 1 number in order to reference a key in a dictionary.
For example, I want the range of numbers between 1 and 5 to be all assigned to, let's say, "apple". So I came up with this:
my_dict['apple'] = range(1,5)
At the program's current state, its far from being able to run, so testing is an issue, but I do not receive any issues from my editor. I was just wondering, is this the correct way to go about this? Or is there a better way?
Thanks.
EDIT:
A little more info: I want to make a random integer with the randint function. Then, after Python has generated that number, I want to use it to call for the key assigned to the value of the random integer. Thing is, I want to make some things more common than others, so I want to make the range of numbers I can call it with larger so the chance of the key coming up becomes likelier. Sorry if it doesn't make much sense, but at the current state, I really don't even have code to show what I'm trying to accomplish.
You have the dictionary backwards. If you want to be able to recall, e.g., 'apple' with any of the numbers 1-5, you'd need the numbers to be the keys, not the values.
for i in range(1,6): # range(a,b) gives [a,b)
my_dict[i] = 'apple'
etc. Then, my_dict[4] == 'apple' and the same is true for the other values in the range.
This can create very large dictionaries with many copies of the same value.
Alternately, you can use range objects as dictionary keys, but the testing will be a bit more cumbersome unless you create your own class.
my_dict[range(1,6)] = 'apple'
n = random.randint(1, 5)
for key in my_dict:
if n in key:
print(my_dict[key])
...prints apple.
The value in a dictionary can be any arbitrary object. Whether it makes sense to use a given type or structure as a value only makes sense in the context of the complete script, so it is impossible to tell you whether it is the correct solution with the given information.
I'm creating an arbitrary number of instances (using for loops and ranges). At some event in the future, I need to change an attribute for only one of the instances. What's the best way to do this?
Right now, I'm doing the following:
1) Manage the instances in a list.
2) Iterate through the list to find a key value.
3) Once I find the right object within the list (i.e. key value = value I'm looking for), change whatever attribute I need to change.
for Instance within ListofInstances:
if Instance.KeyValue == SearchValue:
Instance.AttributeToChange = 10
This feels really inefficient: I'm basically iterating over the entire list of instances, even through I only need to change an attribute in one of them.
Should I be storing the Instance references in a structure more suitable for random access (e.g. dictionary with KeyValue as the dictionary key?) Is a dictionary any more efficient in this case? Should I be using something else?
Thanks,
Mike
Should I be storing the Instance references in a structure more suitable for random access (e.g. dictionary with KeyValue as the dictionary key?)
Yes, if you are mapping from a key to a value (which you are in this case), such that one typically accesses an element via its key, then a dict rather than a list is better.
Is a dictionary any more efficient in this case?
Yes, it is much more efficient. A dictionary takes O(1) on average to lookup an item by its key whereas a list takes O(n) to lookup an item by its key, which is what you are currently doing.
Using a Dictionary
# Construct the dictionary
d = {}
# Insert items into the dictionary
d[key1] = value1
d[key2] = value2
# ...
# Checking if an item exists
if key in d:
# Do something requiring d[key]
# such as updating an attribute:
d[key].attr = val
As you mention, you need to keep an auxiliary dictionary with the key value as the key and the instance (or list of instance with that value for their attribute) as the value(s) -- way more efficient. Indeed, there's nothing more efficient than a dictionary for such uses.
It depends on what the other needs of your program are. If all you ever do with these objects is access the one with that particular key value, then sure, a dictionary is perfect. But if you need to preserve the order of the elements, storing them in a dictionary won't do that. (You could store them in both a dict and a list, or there might be a data structure that provides a compromise between random access and order preservation) Alternatively, if more than one object can have the same key value, then you can't store both of them in a single dict at the same time, at least not directly. (You could have a dict of lists or something)