Setting a value in a nested python dictionary given a list of indices and value

Question

I\'m trying to programmatically set a value in a dictionary, potentially nested, given a list of indices and a value.

So for example, let\'s say my list of indices i

Answer 1

Use these pair of methods

def gattr(d, *attrs):
    """
    This method receives a dict and list of attributes to return the innermost value of the give dict
    """
    try:
        for at in attrs:
            d = d[at]
        return d
    except:
        return None


def sattr(d, *attrs):
    """
    Adds "val" to dict in the hierarchy mentioned via *attrs
    For ex:
    sattr(animals, "cat", "leg","fingers", 4) is equivalent to animals["cat"]["leg"]["fingers"]=4
    This method creates necessary objects until it reaches the final depth
    This behaviour is also known as autovivification and plenty of implementation are around
    This implementation addresses the corner case of replacing existing primitives
    https://gist.github.com/hrldcpr/2012250#gistcomment-1779319
    """
    for attr in attrs[:-2]:
        # If such key is not found or the value is primitive supply an empty dict
        if d.get(attr) is None or isinstance(d.get(attr), dict):
            d[attr] = {}
        d = d[attr]
    d[attrs[-2]] = attrs[-1]

Answer 2

Pyhton3 provide dotty_dict lib. see documentation https://dotty-dict.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ for more clarity

from dotty_dict import dotty

dot = dotty()
string = '.'.join(['person', 'address', 'city']) 
dot[string] = 'New York'

print(dot)

output:

{'person': {'address': {'city': 'New York'}}}