8.12. UserDict — Class wrapper for dictionary objects

The module defines a mixin, DictMixin, defining all dictionary methods for classes that already have a minimum mapping interface. This greatly simplifies writing classes that need to be substitutable for dictionaries (such as the shelve module).

This module also defines a class, UserDict, that acts as a wrapper around dictionary objects. The need for this class has been largely supplanted by the ability to subclass directly from dict (a feature that became available starting with Python version 2.2). Prior to the introduction of dict, the UserDict class was used to create dictionary-like sub-classes that obtained new behaviors by overriding existing methods or adding new ones.

The UserDict module defines the UserDict class and DictMixin:

class UserDict.UserDict([initialdata])

Class that simulates a dictionary. The instance’s contents are kept in a regular dictionary, which is accessible via the data attribute of UserDict instances. If initialdata is provided, data is initialized with its contents; note that a reference to initialdata will not be kept, allowing it be used for other purposes.

Note

For backward compatibility, instances of UserDict are not iterable.

class UserDict.IterableUserDict([initialdata])

Subclass of UserDict that supports direct iteration (e.g. for key in myDict).

In addition to supporting the methods and operations of mappings (see section Mapping Types — dict), UserDict and IterableUserDict instances provide the following attribute:

IterableUserDict.data

A real dictionary used to store the contents of the UserDict class.

class UserDict.DictMixin

Mixin defining all dictionary methods for classes that already have a minimum dictionary interface including __getitem__(), __setitem__(), __delitem__(), and keys().

This mixin should be used as a superclass. Adding each of the above methods adds progressively more functionality. For instance, defining all but __delitem__() will preclude only pop() and popitem() from the full interface.

In addition to the four base methods, progressively more efficiency comes with defining __contains__(), __iter__(), and iteritems().

Since the mixin has no knowledge of the subclass constructor, it does not define __init__() or copy().

Starting with Python version 2.6, it is recommended to use collections.MutableMapping instead of DictMixin.

8.13. UserList — Class wrapper for list objects

This module defines a class that acts as a wrapper around list objects. It is a useful base class for your own list-like classes, which can inherit from them and override existing methods or add new ones. In this way one can add new behaviors to lists.

The UserList module defines the UserList class:

class UserList.UserList([list])

Class that simulates a list. The instance’s contents are kept in a regular list, which is accessible via the data attribute of UserList instances. The instance’s contents are initially set to a copy of list, defaulting to the empty list []. list can be any iterable, e.g. a real Python list or a UserList object.

Note

The UserList class has been moved to the collections module in Python 3.0. The 2to3 tool will automatically adapt imports when converting your sources to 3.0.

In addition to supporting the methods and operations of mutable sequences (see section Sequence Types — str, unicode, list, tuple, buffer, xrange), UserList instances provide the following attribute:

UserList.data

A real Python list object used to store the contents of the UserList class.

Subclassing requirements: Subclasses of UserList are expect to offer a constructor which can be called with either no arguments or one argument. List operations which return a new sequence attempt to create an instance of the actual implementation class. To do so, it assumes that the constructor can be called with a single parameter, which is a sequence object used as a data source.

If a derived class does not wish to comply with this requirement, all of the special methods supported by this class will need to be overridden; please consult the sources for information about the methods which need to be provided in that case.

Changed in version 2.0: Python versions 1.5.2 and 1.6 also required that the constructor be callable with no parameters, and offer a mutable data attribute. Earlier versions of Python did not attempt to create instances of the derived class.

8.14. UserString — Class wrapper for string objects

This module defines a class that acts as a wrapper around string objects. It is a useful base class for your own string-like classes, which can inherit from them and override existing methods or add new ones. In this way one can add new behaviors to strings.

It should be noted that these classes are highly inefficient compared to real string or Unicode objects; this is especially the case for MutableString.

The UserString module defines the following classes:

class UserString.UserString([sequence])

Class that simulates a string or a Unicode string object. The instance’s content is kept in a regular string or Unicode string object, which is accessible via the data attribute of UserString instances. The instance’s contents are initially set to a copy of sequence. sequence can be either a regular Python string or Unicode string, an instance of UserString (or a subclass) or an arbitrary sequence which can be converted into a string using the built-in str() function.

Note

The UserString class has been moved to the collections module in Python 3.0. The 2to3 tool will automatically adapt imports when converting your sources to 3.0.

class UserString.MutableString([sequence])

This class is derived from the UserString above and redefines strings to be mutable. Mutable strings can’t be used as dictionary keys, because dictionaries require immutable objects as keys. The main intention of this class is to serve as an educational example for inheritance and necessity to remove (override) the __hash__() method in order to trap attempts to use a mutable object as dictionary key, which would be otherwise very error prone and hard to track down.

Deprecated since version 2.6: The MutableString class has been removed in Python 3.0.

In addition to supporting the methods and operations of string and Unicode objects (see section String Methods), UserString instances provide the following attribute:

MutableString.data

A real Python string or Unicode object used to store the content of the UserString class.