Turn the dictionary keys into variable names with same values in Python from .mat Matlab files using scipy.io.loadmat

Question

I am trying to take a basic dictionary temp = {'key':array([1,2])} loaded from a .mat file with scipy.io.loadmat. Turn the keys in the Python dictionary file returned by loadmat() into variable names with values the same as the representing keys.

So for example:

temp = {'key':array([1,2])}

turned into

key = array([1,2])

I know how to grab the keys with temp.keys(). Then grabbing the items is easy but how do I force the list of strings in temp.keys() to be variable names instead of strings.

I hope this makes sense but this is probably really easy I just can't think how to do it.

Cheers

Answer 1

In python, method parameters can be passed as dictionnaries with the ** magic:

def my_func(key=None):
   print key
   #do the real stuff

temp = {'key':array([1,2])}

my_func(**temp)

>>> array([1,2])