Hi all! I am pretty sure this has been asked a couple of times, but I don't seem to find it on the archives (Google seems to have a couple of problems lately).
I am wondering what is the most pythonic way of dealing with missing keys and default values. According to my readings one can take the following approaches: 1/ check before (this has a specific name and acronym that I haven't learnt yet by heart) if not my_dict.has_key(key): my_obj = myobject() my_dict[key] = my_obj else: my_obj = my_dict[key] 2/ try and react on error (this has also a specific name, but...) try: my_obj = my_dict[key] except AttributeError: my_obj = myobject() my_dict[key] = my_obj 3/ dict.get usage: my_obj = my_dict.get(key, myobject()) I am wondering which one is the most recommended way? get usage seems the clearest, but the only problem I see is that I think myobject() is evaluated at call time, and so if the initialization is expensive you will probably see surprises. thanks in advance, ./alex -- .w( the_mindstorm )p. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
