Question

How do I create objects on the fly in Python? I often want to pass information to my Django templates which is formatted like this:

{'test': [a1, a2, b2], 'test2': 'something else', 'test3': 1}

which makes the template look untidy. so I think it’s better to just create an object which is like:

class testclass():
    self.test = [a1,a2,b2]
    self.test2 = 'someting else'
    self.test3 = 1
testobj = testclass()

so I can do:

{{ testobj.test }}
{{ testobj.test2 }}
{{ testobj.test3 }}

instead of calling the dictionary.

Since I just need that object once, is it possible to create it without writing a class first? Is there any short-hand code? Is it ok to do it like that or is it bad Python?

Answer 1

In Django templates, the dot notation (testobj.test) can resolve to the Python’s [] operator. This means that all you need is an ordinary dict:

testobj = {'test':[a1,a2,b2], 'test2':'something else', 'test3':1}

Pass it as testobj variable to your template and you can freely use {{ testobj.test }} and similar expressions inside your template. They will be translated to testobj['test']. No dedicated class is needed here.