On 11/26/2010 1:13 PM, Greg Lindstrom wrote:
I am working on a project where I'm using dictionaries to hold the
translations to codes (i.e., {'1':'Cheddar','2':'Ice
Hockey','IL':'Thermostat Broken'}). The bulk of the application
requires me to translate codes to their meaning, but it would be nice to
be able to translate a meaning back to the original code as well. This
seems to me like it must be a common situation that has been
addresses/solved by those smarter than me. Is there, dare I say, a
design pattern for this problem? Is there a better way of approaching
it other than making a set of dictionaries which "mirror" the
originals? FWIW, I have approximately 50 tables ranging from 2 entries
to over 100.
Making 50 inverse dictionaries is trivial. Depending on your need, you
might instead consider one inverse dict that maps 'meaning' to
(table,code) pairs (assuming that meanings are not unique across the 50
original tables.
--
Terry Jan Reedy
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