Assign contents of Python dict to multiple variables at once?

Question

I would like to do something like this

def f():
    return { \'a\' : 1, \'b\' : 2, \'c\' : 3 }

{ a, b } = f()     # or { \'a\', \'b\' } = f() ?

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Answer 1

Hmm. Kind of odd since a dictionary is not ordered, so the value unpacking depends on the variable names. But, it's possible, if ugly:

>>> locals().update(f())
>>> a
1

Don't try this at home! It's a maintainability nightmare. But kinda cool too :-)