webhelpers2.containers

Container objects, and helpers for lists and dicts.

This would have been called this “collections” except that Python 2 can’t import a top-level module that’s the same name as a module in the current package.

Classes

class webhelpers2.containers.Counter

I count the number of occurrences of each value registered with me.

Call the instance to register a value. The result is available as the .result attribute. Example:

>>> counter = Counter()
>>> counter("foo")
>>> counter("bar")
>>> counter("foo")
>>> sorted(counter.result.items())
[('bar', 1), ('foo', 2)]

>> counter.result
{'foo': 2, 'bar': 1}

To see the most frequently-occurring items in order:

>>> counter.get_popular(1)
[(2, 'foo')]
>>> counter.get_popular()
[(2, 'foo'), (1, 'bar')]

Or if you prefer the list in item order:

>>> counter.get_sorted_items()
[('bar', 1), ('foo', 2)]
classmethod correlate(iterable)

Build a Counter from an iterable in one step.

This is the same as adding each item individually.

Return the results as as a list of (count, item) pairs, with the most frequently occurring items first.

If max_items is provided, return no more than that many items.

get_sorted_items()

Return the result as a list of (item, count) pairs sorted by item.

class webhelpers2.containers.DumbObject(**kw)

A container for arbitrary attributes.

Usage:

>>> do = DumbObject(a=1, b=2)
>>> do.b
2

Alternatives to this class include types.SimpleNamespace and collections.namedtuple in the Python standard library.

Functions

webhelpers2.containers.correlate_dicts(dicts, key)

Correlate several dicts under one superdict.

If you have several dicts each with a ‘name’ key, this puts them in a container dict keyed by name.

Example:

>>> d1 = {"name": "Fred", "age": 41}
>>> d2 = {"name": "Barney", "age": 31}
>>> flintstones = correlate_dicts([d1, d2], "name")
>>> sorted(flintstones.keys())
['Barney', 'Fred']
>>> flintstones["Fred"]["age"]
41

If you’re having trouble spelling this method correctly, remember: “relate” has one ‘l’. The ‘r’ is doubled because it occurs after a prefix. Thus “correlate”.

webhelpers2.containers.correlate_objects(objects, attr)

Correlate several objects under one dict.

If you have several objects each with a ‘name’ attribute, this puts them in a dict keyed by name.

Example:

>>> class Flintstone(DumbObject):
...    pass
...
>>> fred = Flintstone(name="Fred", age=41)
>>> barney = Flintstone(name="Barney", age=31)
>>> flintstones = correlate_objects([fred, barney], "name")
>>> sorted(flintstones.keys())
['Barney', 'Fred']
>>> flintstones["Barney"].age
31

If you’re having trouble spelling this method correctly, remember: “relate” has one ‘l’. The ‘r’ is doubled because it occurs after a prefix. Thus “correlate”.

webhelpers2.containers.copy_keys(dic, *keys)

Return a copy of the dict with only the specified items present.

dic may be any mapping. The return value is always a Python dict.

webhelpers2.containers.copy_keys_except(dic, *keys)

Return a copy of the dict without the specified items.

webhelpers2.containers.del_keys(dic, *keys)

Delete several keys from a dict, ignoring those that don’t exist.

This modifies the dict in place.

>>> d ={"A": 1, "B": 2, "C": 3}
>>> del_keys(d, "A", "C")
>>> d
{'B': 2}
webhelpers2.containers.distribute(lis, columns, direction, fill=None)

Distribute a list into a N-column table (list of lists).

lis is a list of values to distribute.

columns is an int greater than 1, specifying the number of columns in the table.

direction is a string beginning with “H” (horizontal) or “V” (vertical), case insensitive. This affects how values are distributed in the table, as described below.

fill is a value that will be placed in any remaining cells if the data runs out before the last row or column is completed. This must be an immutable value such as None , "", 0, “ “, etc. If you use a mutable value like [] and later change any cell containing the fill value, all other cells containing the fill value will also be changed.

The return value is a list of lists, where each sublist represents a row in the table. table[0] is the first row. table[0][0] is the first column in the first row. table[0][1] is the second column in the first row.

This can be displayed in an HTML table via the following Mako template:

<table>
% for row in table:
  <tr>
% for cell in row:
    <td>${cell}</td>
% endfor   cell
  </tr>
% endfor   row
</table>

In a horizontal table, each row is filled before going on to the next row. This is the same as dividing the list into chunks:

>>> distribute([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8], 3, "H")
[[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8, None]]

In a vertical table, the first element of each sublist is filled before going on to the second element. This is useful for displaying an alphabetical list in columns, or when the entire column will be placed in a single <td> with a <br /> between each element:

>>> food = ["apple", "banana", "carrot", "daikon", "egg", "fish", "gelato", "honey"]
>>> table = distribute(food, 3, "V", "")
>>> table
[['apple', 'daikon', 'gelato'], ['banana', 'egg', 'honey'], ['carrot', 'fish', '']]
>>> for row in table:
...    for item in row:
...         print "%-9s" % item,
...    print "."   # To show where the line ends.
...
apple     daikon    gelato    .
banana    egg       honey     .
carrot    fish                .

Alternatives to this function include a NumPy matrix of objects.

webhelpers2.containers.ordered_items(dic, key_order, other_keys=True, default=<class 'webhelpers2.misc.NotGiven'>)

Like dict.iteritems() but with a specified key order.

Arguments:

  • dic is any mapping.

  • key_order is a list of keys. Items will be yielded in this order.

  • other_keys is a boolean.

  • default is a value returned if the key is not in the dict.

This yields the items listed in key_order. If a key does not exist in the dict, yield the default value if specified, otherwise skip the missing key. Afterwards, if other_keys is true, yield the remaining items in an arbitrary order.

Usage:

>>> dic = {"To": "you", "From": "me", "Date": "2008/1/4", "Subject": "X"}
>>> dic["received"] = "..."
>>> order = ["From", "To", "Subject"]
>>> list(ordered_items(dic, order, False))
[('From', 'me'), ('To', 'you'), ('Subject', 'X')]
webhelpers2.containers.split_dict(dic, *keys)

Return two copies of the dict. The first will contain only the specified items. The second will contain all the other items from the original dict.

Example:

>>> split_dict({"From": "F", "To": "T", "Received", R"}, "To", "From") 
({"From": "F", "To": "T"}, {"Received": "R"})
webhelpers2.containers.transpose(array)

Turn a list of lists sideways, making columns into rows and vice-versa.

array must be rectangular; i.e., all elements must be the same length. Otherwise the behavior is undefined: you may get IndexError or missing items.

Examples:

>>> transpose([["A", "B", "C"], ["D", "E", "F"]])
[['A', 'D'], ['B', 'E'], ['C', 'F']]
>>> transpose([["A", "B"], ["C", "D"], ["E", "F"]])
[['A', 'C', 'E'], ['B', 'D', 'F']]
>>> transpose([])
[]

Here’s a pictoral view of the first example:

A B C    =>    A D
D E F          B E
               C F

This can be used to turn an HTML table into a group of div columns. An HTML table is row major: it consists of several <tr> rows, each containing several <td> cells. But a <div> layout consists of only one row, each containing an entire subarray. The <div>s have style “float:left”, which makes them appear horizontally. The items within each <div> are placed in their own <div>’s or separated by <br />, which makes them appear vertically. The point is that an HTML table is row major (array[0] is the first row), while a group of div columns is column major (array[0] is the first column). transpose() can be used to switch between the two.

webhelpers2.containers.unique(it)

Return a list of unique elements in the iterable, preserving the order.

Usage:

>>> unique([None, "spam", 2, "spam", "A", "spam", "spam", "eggs", "spam"])
[None, 'spam', 2, 'A', 'eggs']