Question

In Python (2.7), is there a native 2 dimensional data structure that can be accessed through string based indices?

I know you can have a dictionary that can be accessed with a string index, for example:

>>> dic = dict()
>>> dic['grumpy'] = 'cat'
>>> print(dict['grumpy'])
'cat'

But what I would like is a data structure that can be accessed like:

>>> dic['grumpy']['frumpy'] = 'cat'
>>> print(dict['grumpy']['frumpy'])
'cat'

Array seems to be a no-go since it only allows integer based access… any suggestions? Thanks!

Answer 1

Use a defaultdict:

from collections import defaultdict

nesteddict = defaultdict(dict)

nesteddict['abc']['spam'] = 'ham'

Note that what you describe is a simple nested structure; you can also build it without using defaultdict but that class makes it all the easier to do so.