How to use a dot to access members of dictionary

Question

How do I make Python dictionary members accessible via a dot "."?

For example, instead of writing mydict['val'], I'd like to write mydict.val.

Also I'd like to access nested dicts this way. For example

mydict.mydict2.val 

would refer to

mydict = { 'mydict2': { 'val': ... } }

Answer 1

Hello @kartik,

If you want to pickle your modified dictionary, you need to add few state methods to above answers:

class DotDict(dict):
    """dot.notation access to dictionary attributes"""
    def __getattr__(self, attr):
        return self.get(attr)
    __setattr__= dict.__setitem__
    __delattr__= dict.__delitem__

    def __getstate__(self):
        return self

    def __setstate__(self, state):
        self.update(state)
        self.__dict__ = self