How to merge dictionaries of dictionaries?

Question

I need to merge multiple dictionaries, here\'s what I have for instance:

dict1 = {1:{\"a\":{A}}, 2:{\"b\":{B}}}

dict2 = {2:{\"c\":{C}}, 3:{\"d\":{D}}
         


        

Answer 1

This version of the function will account for N number of dictionaries, and only dictionaries -- no improper parameters can be passed, or it will raise a TypeError. The merge itself accounts for key conflicts, and instead of overwriting data from a dictionary further down the merge chain, it creates a set of values and appends to that; no data is lost.

It might not be the most effecient on the page, but it's the most thorough and you're not going to lose any information when you merge your 2 to N dicts.

def merge_dicts(*dicts):
    if not reduce(lambda x, y: isinstance(y, dict) and x, dicts, True):
        raise TypeError, "Object in *dicts not of type dict"
    if len(dicts) < 2:
        raise ValueError, "Requires 2 or more dict objects"


    def merge(a, b):
        for d in set(a.keys()).union(b.keys()):
            if d in a and d in b:
                if type(a[d]) == type(b[d]):
                    if not isinstance(a[d], dict):
                        ret = list({a[d], b[d]})
                        if len(ret) == 1: ret = ret[0]
                        yield (d, sorted(ret))
                    else:
                        yield (d, dict(merge(a[d], b[d])))
                else:
                    raise TypeError, "Conflicting key:value type assignment"
            elif d in a:
                yield (d, a[d])
            elif d in b:
                yield (d, b[d])
            else:
                raise KeyError

    return reduce(lambda x, y: dict(merge(x, y)), dicts[1:], dicts[0])

print merge_dicts({1:1,2:{1:2}},{1:2,2:{3:1}},{4:4})

output: {1: [1, 2], 2: {1: 2, 3: 1}, 4: 4}