Question

I’m asking a question similar to this, but with python 2.7 instead. I know that I’m the same asker of the question, but the answer should be different. Here’s the link.

How to make a variable name without creating an array in C++?

I looked up Data Structures on the python website, but I have no idea what they’re talking about. Any help or guidance appreciated!

Answer 1

If you are looking for a structure that is similar to std::map in C++, you should use dict. It is a dictionary, that can have any hashable object as key (a string, a tuple, an integer). For example:

x = dict()
x['a'] = 5
x[6] = MyObject()

As you can see this is more powerful than std::map, because keys might have different types and values too.

If you want to assign a class, you also can do this:

class MyClass:
    pass

x[1] = MyClass

but maybe you are interested in having an instance of this class? This also is possible (on the same dict):

x[1] = MyClass() # this creates an instance