I 'm trying to do :
award_dict = {
"url" : "http://facebook.com",
"imageurl" : "http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3431/3939267074_feb9eb19b1_o.png",
"count" : 1,
}
def award(name, count, points, desc_string, my_size, parent) :
if my_size > count :
a = {
"name" : name,
"description" : desc_string % count,
"points" : points,
"parent_award" : parent,
}
a.update(award_dict)
return self.add_award(a, siteAlias, alias).award
But if felt really cumbersome in the function, and I would have rather done :
return self.add_award({
"name" : name,
"description" : desc_string % count,
"points" : points,
"parent_award" : parent,
}.update(award_dict), siteAlias, alias).award
Why doesn't update return the object so you can chain?
JQuery does this to do chaining. Why isn't it acceptable in python?
Python's mostly implementing a pragmatically tinged flavor of command-query separation: mutators return None
(with pragmatically induced exceptions such as pop
;-) so they can't possibly be confused with accessors (and in the same vein, assignment is not an expression, the statement-expression separation is there, and so forth).
That doesn't mean there aren't a lot of ways to merge things up when you really want, e.g., dict(a, **award_dict)
makes a new dict much like the one you appear to wish .update
returned -- so why not use THAT if you really feel it's important?
Edit: btw, no need, in your specific case, to create a
along the way, either:
dict(name=name, description=desc % count, points=points, parent_award=parent,
**award_dict)
creates a single dict with exactly the same semantics as your a.update(award_dict)
(including, in case of conflicts, the fact that entries in award_dict
override those you're giving explicitly; to get the other semantics, i.e., to have explicit entries "winning" such conflicts, pass award_dict
as the sole positional arg, before the keyword ones, and bereft of the **
form -- dict(award_dict, name=name
etc etc).