How to preserve matlab struct when accessing in python?

Question

I have a mat-file that I accessed using

from scipy import io
mat = io.loadmat(\'example.mat\')

From matlab, example.mat contains the following

Answer 1

When I need to load data into Python from MATLAB that is stored in an array of structs {strut_1,struct_2} I extract a list of keys and values from the object that I load with scipy.io.loadmat. I can then assemble these into there own variables, or if needed, repackage them into a dictionary. The use of the exec command may not be appropriate in all cases, but if you are just trying to processes data it works well.

# Load the data into Python     
D= sio.loadmat('data.mat')

# build a list of keys and values for each entry in the structure
vals = D['results'][0,0] #<-- set the array you want to access. 
keys = D['results'][0,0].dtype.descr

# Assemble the keys and values into variables with the same name as that used in MATLAB
for i in range(len(keys)):
    key = keys[i][0]
    val = np.squeeze(vals[key][0][0])  # squeeze is used to covert matlat (1,n) arrays into numpy (1,) arrays. 
    exec(key + '=val')