Initializing Python class with array data

Question

Suppose I have the code below:

class Person(object):
""" Capture user demographics data"""

def __init__(self, name, address, phone, gender, name_prefix):
    """ Initialize the object """
    self.name = name
    self.address = address
    self.phone = phone
    self.gender = gender
    self.prefix = name_prefix


def display_userdata(self):
    """ Returns user data"""
    userdata = {'name':self.name, 'address': self.address, 
                'phone': self.phone, 'gender': self.gender, 'prefix': self.prefix
               }
    return userdata

I can initialize the data:

newperson = Person("Ben", '9999 Gotham City, las vegas', '702-000-0000', 'male', 'Waiter')

But I have a feeling that the display_userdata() function is redundant if I could re-write __init to store as dict .

newperson.display_userdata()

It returns the output:

{'address': '9999 Gotham City, las vegas',
 'gender': 'male',
 'name': 'Ben',
 'phone': '702-000-0000',
 'prefix': 'Waiter'}

My questions are:

Is there a smarter way to write the __init__ snippet so the input is stored directly as python dictionary? I don't want to call the constructor with dict key by using setattr .

Secondly, Suppose the user has 3 phones or more (variable), how do I store this in an array while calling the object constructor. Think self.phone = ['702-000-000', '413-222-3333' ]

Answer 1

Why not just create the dict directly in the init?

class Person(object):
""" Capture user demographics data"""

    def __init__(self, name, address, phone, gender, prefix):
        """ Initialize the object """
        self.userdata = {'name': name, 'address': address, 
                'phone': phone, 'gender': gender, 'prefix': prefix
               }

then

newperson = Person(name="Ben", address='9999 Gotham City, las vegas', phone='702-000-0000', gender ='male', prefix ='Waiter')
print newperson.userdata

returns

{'phone': '702-000-0000', 'gender': 'male', 'prefix': 'Waiter', 'name': 'Ben', 'address': '9999 Gotham City, las vegas'}

To your second question, if you pass a list instead of a string to the phone parameter that will show up as a list, will that work?

newperson = Person(name="Ben", address='9999 Gotham City, las vegas', phone=['702-000-0000', '111-827-3509'], gender ='male', prefix ='Waiter')
print newperson.userdata

returns

{'phone': ['702-000-0000', '111-827-3509'], 'gender': 'male', 'prefix': 'Waiter', 'name': 'Ben', 'address': '9999 Gotham City, las vegas'}

Answer 2

You could achieve it by using keyword arguments in python (**kwargs). https://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/controlflow.html#keyword-arguments

Answer 3

If you have your data as list , you want to pass it as a parameter when creating instance of Person this why:

mydata = ["Ben", '9999 Gotham City, las vegas', '702-000-0000', 'male', 'Waiter']

class Person(object):
    """ Capture user demographics data"""
    def __init__(self, *data):
        self.userdata = {'name': data[0], 'address': data[1],
                'phone': data[2], 'gender': data[3], 'prefix': data[4]
               }
    def test(self):
            print self.userdata

>>>newPerson = Person(*mydata)
>>>newPerson.test()
{'phone': '702-000-0000', 'gender': 'male', 'prefix': 'Waiter', 'name': 'Ben', 'address': '9999 Gotham City, las vegas'}

But Here you have to keep your data organized in your list in standard way, Otherwise you better use dictionary instead of list , this way:

>>>mydata = {'name':"Ben", 'address':'9999 Gotham City, las vegas', 'phone':'702-000-0000', 'gender':'male', 'prefix':'Waiter'}

>>>class Person(object):
       """ Capture user demographics data"""

       def __init__(self, **kwargs):
            """ Initialize the object """
           self.userdata = kwargs
       def test(self):
            print self.userdata

>>>newPerson = Person(**mydata)
>>>newPerson.test()
{'phone': '702-000-0000', 'gender': 'male', 'prefix': 'Waiter', 'name': 'Ben', 'address': '9999 Gotham City, las vegas'}