CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
user1556177
user1556177

Reputation: 1

accessing PART of a file name based on user input to a function--Python

I'm a newb trying to figure out how to accomplish the following:

I have dicts named after users in the following format:

<user>_hx

I want to access them with a function like so:

def foo(user, other_stuff):
  user_hx[key]

......etc.

I attempted to access with % as follows:

def foo(user, other_stuff):
  %r_hx %user[key]

but for obvious reasons I know that can't work.

Adivce?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 58

Answers (3)

Keith
Keith

Reputation: 43024

Don't use the name as a variable. You can put your collection of dictionaries inside another, top-level, dictionary with those names as keys.

users = {
    "user1_hx": {"name": "User 1"},
    "user2_hx": {"name": "User 2"),
    }

etc.

Then access as:

realname = users["%s_hx" % name]["name"]

etc.

Upvotes: 0

Joran Beasley
Joran Beasley

Reputation: 113978

def foo(user,other_stuff):
     fname = "%s_hx"%user[key] #not sure where key is comming from... but would result in something like "bob_hx"
     with open(fname) as f:
          print f.read()

maybe?/

Upvotes: 0

Isaac
Isaac

Reputation: 3616

What I think you are asking is how to access a variable based on a string representing its name. Python makes this quite easy:

globals()['%s_hx' % user]

will give you the variable <user>_hx, so you just want

globals()['%s_hx' % user][key]

(I'm not sure whether you should be using globals() or locals(); it will depend on how your variables are defined and where you are trying to access them from)

That said, there is probably an easier/cleaner way to do whatever you are doing. For instance, have you considered putting all these dictionaries in a 'master' dictionary so that you can pass them around, as well as just access them

Upvotes: 1

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