collections
— Container datatypes¶
This module implements high-performance container datatypes. Currently,
there are two datatypes, deque
and defaultdict
, and
one datatype factory function, namedtuple()
. This module also
provides the UserDict
and UserList
classes which may
be useful when inheriting directly from dict
or
list
isn’t convenient.
The specialized containers provided in this module provide alternatives
to Python’s general purpose built-in containers, dict
,
list
, set
, and tuple
.
In addition to containers, the collections module provides some ABCs (abstract base classes) that can be used to test whether a class provides a particular interface, for example, is it hashable or a mapping, and some of them can also be used as mixin classes.
ABCs - abstract base classes¶
The collections module offers the following ABCs:
ABC | Inherits | Abstract Methods | Mixin Methods |
---|---|---|---|
Container |
__contains__ |
||
Hashable |
__hash__ |
||
Iterable |
__iter__ |
||
Iterator |
Iterable |
__next__ |
__iter__ |
Sized |
__len__ |
||
Callable |
__call__ |
||
Sequence |
Sized ,
Iterable ,
Container |
__getitem__ |
__contains__ . __iter__ , __reversed__ .
index , and count |
MutableSequence |
Sequence |
__setitem__
__delitem__ ,
and insert |
Inherited Sequence methods and
append , reverse , extend , pop ,
remove , and __iadd__ |
Set |
Sized ,
Iterable ,
Container |
__le__ , __lt__ , __eq__ , __ne__ ,
__gt__ , __ge__ , __and__ , __or__
__sub__ , __xor__ , and isdisjoint |
|
MutableSet |
Set |
add and
discard |
Inherited Set methods and
clear , pop , remove , __ior__ ,
__iand__ , __ixor__ , and __isub__ |
Mapping |
Sized ,
Iterable ,
Container |
__getitem__ |
__contains__ , keys , items , values ,
get , __eq__ , and __ne__ |
MutableMapping |
Mapping |
__setitem__ and
__delitem__ |
Inherited Mapping methods and
pop , popitem , clear , update ,
and setdefault |
MappingView |
Sized |
__len__ |
|
KeysView |
MappingView ,
Set |
__contains__ ,
__iter__ |
|
ItemsView |
MappingView ,
Set |
__contains__ ,
__iter__ |
|
ValuesView |
MappingView |
__contains__ , __iter__ |
These ABCs allow us to ask classes or instances if they provide particular functionality, for example:
size = None
if isinstance(myvar, collections.Sized):
size = len(myvar)
Several of the ABCs are also useful as mixins that make it easier to develop
classes supporting container APIs. For example, to write a class supporting
the full Set
API, it only necessary to supply the three underlying
abstract methods: __contains__()
, __iter__()
, and __len__()
.
The ABC supplies the remaining methods such as __and__()
and
isdisjoint()
class ListBasedSet(collections.Set):
''' Alternate set implementation favoring space over speed
and not requiring the set elements to be hashable. '''
def __init__(self, iterable):
self.elements = lst = []
for value in iterable:
if value not in lst:
lst.append(value)
def __iter__(self):
return iter(self.elements)
def __contains__(self, value):
return value in self.elements
def __len__(self):
return len(self.elements)
s1 = ListBasedSet('abcdef')
s2 = ListBasedSet('defghi')
overlap = s1 & s2 # The __and__() method is supported automatically
Notes on using Set
and MutableSet
as a mixin:
- Since some set operations create new sets, the default mixin methods need
a way to create new instances from an iterable. The class constructor is
assumed to have a signature in the form
ClassName(iterable)
. That assumption is factored-out to an internal classmethod called_from_iterable()
which callscls(iterable)
to produce a new set. If theSet
mixin is being used in a class with a different constructor signature, you will need to overridefrom_iterable()
with a classmethod that can construct new instances from an iterable argument. - To override the comparisons (presumably for speed, as the
semantics are fixed), redefine
__le__()
and then the other operations will automatically follow suit. - The
Set
mixin provides a_hash()
method to compute a hash value for the set; however,__hash__()
is not defined because not all sets are hashable or immutable. To add set hashabilty using mixins, inherit from bothSet()
andHashable()
, then define__hash__ = Set._hash
.
deque
objects¶
-
class
collections.
deque
([iterable[, maxlen]])¶ Returns a new deque object initialized left-to-right (using
append()
) with data from iterable. If iterable is not specified, the new deque is empty.Deques are a generalization of stacks and queues (the name is pronounced 「deck」 and is short for 「double-ended queue」). Deques support thread-safe, memory efficient appends and pops from either side of the deque with approximately the same O(1) performance in either direction.
Though
list
objects support similar operations, they are optimized for fast fixed-length operations and incur O(n) memory movement costs forpop(0)
andinsert(0, v)
operations which change both the size and position of the underlying data representation.If maxlen is not specified or is None, deques may grow to an arbitrary length. Otherwise, the deque is bounded to the specified maximum length. Once a bounded length deque is full, when new items are added, a corresponding number of items are discarded from the opposite end. Bounded length deques provide functionality similar to the
tail
filter in Unix. They are also useful for tracking transactions and other pools of data where only the most recent activity is of interest.Deque objects support the following methods:
-
append
(x)¶ Add x to the right side of the deque.
-
appendleft
(x)¶ Add x to the left side of the deque.
-
clear
()¶ Remove all elements from the deque leaving it with length 0.
-
extend
(iterable)¶ Extend the right side of the deque by appending elements from the iterable argument.
-
extendleft
(iterable)¶ Extend the left side of the deque by appending elements from iterable. Note, the series of left appends results in reversing the order of elements in the iterable argument.
-
pop
()¶ Remove and return an element from the right side of the deque. If no elements are present, raises an
IndexError
.
-
popleft
()¶ Remove and return an element from the left side of the deque. If no elements are present, raises an
IndexError
.
-
remove
(value)¶ Removed the first occurrence of value. If not found, raises a
ValueError
.
-
rotate
(n)¶ Rotate the deque n steps to the right. If n is negative, rotate to the left. Rotating one step to the right is equivalent to:
d.appendleft(d.pop())
.
-
In addition to the above, deques support iteration, pickling, len(d)
,
reversed(d)
, copy.copy(d)
, copy.deepcopy(d)
, membership testing with
the in
operator, and subscript references such as d[-1]
. Indexed
access is O(1) at both ends but slows to O(n) in the middle. For fast random
access, use lists instead.
Example:
>>> from collections import deque
>>> d = deque('ghi') # make a new deque with three items
>>> for elem in d: # iterate over the deque's elements
... print(elem.upper())
G
H
I
>>> d.append('j') # add a new entry to the right side
>>> d.appendleft('f') # add a new entry to the left side
>>> d # show the representation of the deque
deque(['f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j'])
>>> d.pop() # return and remove the rightmost item
'j'
>>> d.popleft() # return and remove the leftmost item
'f'
>>> list(d) # list the contents of the deque
['g', 'h', 'i']
>>> d[0] # peek at leftmost item
'g'
>>> d[-1] # peek at rightmost item
'i'
>>> list(reversed(d)) # list the contents of a deque in reverse
['i', 'h', 'g']
>>> 'h' in d # search the deque
True
>>> d.extend('jkl') # add multiple elements at once
>>> d
deque(['g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k', 'l'])
>>> d.rotate(1) # right rotation
>>> d
deque(['l', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k'])
>>> d.rotate(-1) # left rotation
>>> d
deque(['g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k', 'l'])
>>> deque(reversed(d)) # make a new deque in reverse order
deque(['l', 'k', 'j', 'i', 'h', 'g'])
>>> d.clear() # empty the deque
>>> d.pop() # cannot pop from an empty deque
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#6>", line 1, in -toplevel-
d.pop()
IndexError: pop from an empty deque
>>> d.extendleft('abc') # extendleft() reverses the input order
>>> d
deque(['c', 'b', 'a'])
deque
Recipes¶
This section shows various approaches to working with deques.
The rotate()
method provides a way to implement deque
slicing and
deletion. For example, a pure python implementation of del d[n]
relies on
the rotate()
method to position elements to be popped:
def delete_nth(d, n):
d.rotate(-n)
d.popleft()
d.rotate(n)
To implement deque
slicing, use a similar approach applying
rotate()
to bring a target element to the left side of the deque. Remove
old entries with popleft()
, add new entries with extend()
, and then
reverse the rotation.
With minor variations on that approach, it is easy to implement Forth style
stack manipulations such as dup
, drop
, swap
, over
, pick
,
rot
, and roll
.
Multi-pass data reduction algorithms can be succinctly expressed and efficiently
coded by extracting elements with multiple calls to popleft()
, applying
a reduction function, and calling append()
to add the result back to the
deque.
For example, building a balanced binary tree of nested lists entails reducing two adjacent nodes into one by grouping them in a list:
>>> def maketree(iterable):
... d = deque(iterable)
... while len(d) > 1:
... pair = [d.popleft(), d.popleft()]
... d.append(pair)
... return list(d)
...
>>> print(maketree('abcdefgh'))
[[[['a', 'b'], ['c', 'd']], [['e', 'f'], ['g', 'h']]]]
Bounded length deques provide functionality similar to the tail
filter
in Unix:
def tail(filename, n=10):
'Return the last n lines of a file'
return deque(open(filename), n)
defaultdict
objects¶
-
class
collections.
defaultdict
([default_factory[, ...]])¶ Returns a new dictionary-like object.
defaultdict
is a subclass of the builtindict
class. It overrides one method and adds one writable instance variable. The remaining functionality is the same as for thedict
class and is not documented here.The first argument provides the initial value for the
default_factory
attribute; it defaults toNone
. All remaining arguments are treated the same as if they were passed to thedict
constructor, including keyword arguments.defaultdict
objects support the following method in addition to the standarddict
operations:-
__missing__
(key)¶ If the
default_factory
attribute isNone
, this raises aKeyError
exception with the key as argument.If
default_factory
is notNone
, it is called without arguments to provide a default value for the given key, this value is inserted in the dictionary for the key, and returned.If calling
default_factory
raises an exception this exception is propagated unchanged.This method is called by the
__getitem__()
method of thedict
class when the requested key is not found; whatever it returns or raises is then returned or raised by__getitem__()
.
defaultdict
objects support the following instance variable:-
default_factory
¶ This attribute is used by the
__missing__()
method; it is initialized from the first argument to the constructor, if present, or toNone
, if absent.
-
defaultdict
Examples¶
Using list
as the default_factory
, it is easy to group a
sequence of key-value pairs into a dictionary of lists:
>>> s = [('yellow', 1), ('blue', 2), ('yellow', 3), ('blue', 4), ('red', 1)]
>>> d = defaultdict(list)
>>> for k, v in s:
... d[k].append(v)
...
>>> d.items()
[('blue', [2, 4]), ('red', [1]), ('yellow', [1, 3])]
When each key is encountered for the first time, it is not already in the
mapping; so an entry is automatically created using the default_factory
function which returns an empty list
. The list.append()
operation then attaches the value to the new list. When keys are encountered
again, the look-up proceeds normally (returning the list for that key) and the
list.append()
operation adds another value to the list. This technique is
simpler and faster than an equivalent technique using dict.setdefault()
:
>>> d = {}
>>> for k, v in s:
... d.setdefault(k, []).append(v)
...
>>> d.items()
[('blue', [2, 4]), ('red', [1]), ('yellow', [1, 3])]
Setting the default_factory
to int
makes the
defaultdict
useful for counting (like a bag or multiset in other
languages):
>>> s = 'mississippi'
>>> d = defaultdict(int)
>>> for k in s:
... d[k] += 1
...
>>> d.items()
[('i', 4), ('p', 2), ('s', 4), ('m', 1)]
When a letter is first encountered, it is missing from the mapping, so the
default_factory
function calls int()
to supply a default count of
zero. The increment operation then builds up the count for each letter.
The function int()
which always returns zero is just a special case of
constant functions. A faster and more flexible way to create constant functions
is to use a lambda function which can supply any constant value (not just
zero):
>>> def constant_factory(value):
... return lambda: value
>>> d = defaultdict(constant_factory('<missing>'))
>>> d.update(name='John', action='ran')
>>> '%(name)s %(action)s to %(object)s' % d
'John ran to <missing>'
Setting the default_factory
to set
makes the
defaultdict
useful for building a dictionary of sets:
>>> s = [('red', 1), ('blue', 2), ('red', 3), ('blue', 4), ('red', 1), ('blue', 4)]
>>> d = defaultdict(set)
>>> for k, v in s:
... d[k].add(v)
...
>>> d.items()
[('blue', set([2, 4])), ('red', set([1, 3]))]
namedtuple()
Factory Function for Tuples with Named Fields¶
Named tuples assign meaning to each position in a tuple and allow for more readable, self-documenting code. They can be used wherever regular tuples are used, and they add the ability to access fields by name instead of position index.
-
collections.
namedtuple
(typename, field_names[, verbose])¶ Returns a new tuple subclass named typename. The new subclass is used to create tuple-like objects that have fields accessible by attribute lookup as well as being indexable and iterable. Instances of the subclass also have a helpful docstring (with typename and field_names) and a helpful
__repr__()
method which lists the tuple contents in aname=value
format.The field_names are a single string with each fieldname separated by whitespace and/or commas, for example
'x y'
or'x, y'
. Alternatively, field_names can be a sequence of strings such as['x', 'y']
.Any valid Python identifier may be used for a fieldname except for names starting with an underscore. Valid identifiers consist of letters, digits, and underscores but do not start with a digit or underscore and cannot be a
keyword
such as class, for, return, global, pass, or raise.If verbose is true, the class definition is printed just before being built.
Named tuple instances do not have per-instance dictionaries, so they are lightweight and require no more memory than regular tuples.
Example:
>>> Point = namedtuple('Point', 'x y', verbose=True)
class Point(tuple):
'Point(x, y)'
__slots__ = ()
_fields = ('x', 'y')
def __new__(cls, x, y):
return tuple.__new__(cls, (x, y))
@classmethod
def _make(cls, iterable, new=tuple.__new__, len=len):
'Make a new Point object from a sequence or iterable'
result = new(cls, iterable)
if len(result) != 2:
raise TypeError('Expected 2 arguments, got %d' % len(result))
return result
def __repr__(self):
return 'Point(x=%r, y=%r)' % self
def _asdict(t):
'Return a new dict which maps field names to their values'
return {'x': t[0], 'y': t[1]}
def _replace(self, **kwds):
'Return a new Point object replacing specified fields with new values'
result = self._make(map(kwds.pop, ('x', 'y'), self))
if kwds:
raise ValueError('Got unexpected field names: %r' % kwds.keys())
return result
def __getnewargs__(self):
return tuple(self)
x = property(itemgetter(0))
y = property(itemgetter(1))
>>> p = Point(11, y=22) # instantiate with positional or keyword arguments
>>> p[0] + p[1] # indexable like the plain tuple (11, 22)
33
>>> x, y = p # unpack like a regular tuple
>>> x, y
(11, 22)
>>> p.x + p.y # fields also accessible by name
33
>>> p # readable __repr__ with a name=value style
Point(x=11, y=22)
Named tuples are especially useful for assigning field names to result tuples returned
by the csv
or sqlite3
modules:
EmployeeRecord = namedtuple('EmployeeRecord', 'name, age, title, department, paygrade')
import csv
for emp in map(EmployeeRecord._make, csv.reader(open("employees.csv", "rb"))):
print(emp.name, emp.title)
import sqlite3
conn = sqlite3.connect('/companydata')
cursor = conn.cursor()
cursor.execute('SELECT name, age, title, department, paygrade FROM employees')
for emp in map(EmployeeRecord._make, cursor.fetchall()):
print(emp.name, emp.title)
In addition to the methods inherited from tuples, named tuples support three additional methods and one attribute. To prevent conflicts with field names, the method and attribute names start with an underscore.
-
somenamedtuple.
_make
(iterable)¶ Class method that makes a new instance from an existing sequence or iterable.
>>> t = [11, 22]
>>> Point._make(t)
Point(x=11, y=22)
-
somenamedtuple.
_asdict
()¶ Return a new dict which maps field names to their corresponding values:
>>> p._asdict() {'x': 11, 'y': 22}
-
somenamedtuple.
_replace
(kwargs)¶ Return a new instance of the named tuple replacing specified fields with new values:
>>> p = Point(x=11, y=22)
>>> p._replace(x=33)
Point(x=33, y=22)
>>> for partnum, record in inventory.items():
... inventory[partnum] = record._replace(price=newprices[partnum], timestamp=time.now())
-
somenamedtuple.
_fields
¶ Tuple of strings listing the field names. Useful for introspection and for creating new named tuple types from existing named tuples.
>>> p._fields # view the field names
('x', 'y')
>>> Color = namedtuple('Color', 'red green blue')
>>> Pixel = namedtuple('Pixel', Point._fields + Color._fields)
>>> Pixel(11, 22, 128, 255, 0)
Pixel(x=11, y=22, red=128, green=255, blue=0)
To retrieve a field whose name is stored in a string, use the getattr()
function:
>>> getattr(p, 'x')
11
To convert a dictionary to a named tuple, use the double-star-operator (as described in Unpacking Argument Lists):
>>> d = {'x': 11, 'y': 22}
>>> Point(**d)
Point(x=11, y=22)
Since a named tuple is a regular Python class, it is easy to add or change functionality with a subclass. Here is how to add a calculated field and a fixed-width print format:
>>> class Point(namedtuple('Point', 'x y')):
... __slots__ = ()
... @property
... def hypot(self):
... return (self.x ** 2 + self.y ** 2) ** 0.5
... def __str__(self):
... return 'Point: x=%6.3f y=%6.3f hypot=%6.3f' % (self.x, self.y, self.hypot)
>>> for p in Point(3, 4), Point(14, 5/7):
... print(p)
Point: x= 3.000 y= 4.000 hypot= 5.000
Point: x=14.000 y= 0.714 hypot=14.018
The subclass shown above sets __slots__
to an empty tuple. This keeps
keep memory requirements low by preventing the creation of instance dictionaries.
Subclassing is not useful for adding new, stored fields. Instead, simply
create a new named tuple type from the _fields
attribute:
>>> Point3D = namedtuple('Point3D', Point._fields + ('z',))
Default values can be implemented by using _replace()
to
customize a prototype instance:
>>> Account = namedtuple('Account', 'owner balance transaction_count')
>>> default_account = Account('<owner name>', 0.0, 0)
>>> johns_account = default_account._replace(owner='John')
Enumerated constants can be implemented with named tuples, but it is simpler and more efficient to use a simple class declaration:
>>> Status = namedtuple('Status', 'open pending closed')._make(range(3))
>>> Status.open, Status.pending, Status.closed
(0, 1, 2)
>>> class Status:
... open, pending, closed = range(3)
也參考
Named tuple recipe adapted for Python 2.4.
UserDict
objects¶
The class, UserDict
acts as a wrapper around dictionary objects.
The need for this class has been partially supplanted by the ability to
subclass directly from dict
; however, this class can be easier
to work with because the underlying dictionary is accessible as an
attribute.
-
class
collections.
UserDict
([initialdata])¶ Class that simulates a dictionary. The instance’s contents are kept in a regular dictionary, which is accessible via the
data
attribute ofUserDict
instances. If initialdata is provided,data
is initialized with its contents; note that a reference to initialdata will not be kept, allowing it be used for other purposes.
In addition to supporting the methods and operations of mappings,
UserDict
instances provide the following attribute:
UserList
objects¶
This class acts as a wrapper around list objects. It is a useful base class for your own list-like classes which can inherit from them and override existing methods or add new ones. In this way, one can add new behaviors to lists.
The need for this class has been partially supplanted by the ability to
subclass directly from list
; however, this class can be easier
to work with because the underlying list is accessible as an attribute.
-
class
collections.
UserList
([list])¶ Class that simulates a list. The instance’s contents are kept in a regular list, which is accessible via the
data
attribute ofUserList
instances. The instance’s contents are initially set to a copy of list, defaulting to the empty list[]
. list can be any iterable, for example a real Python list or aUserList
object.
In addition to supporting the methods and operations of mutable sequences,
UserList
instances provide the following attribute:
Subclassing requirements: Subclasses of UserList
are expect to
offer a constructor which can be called with either no arguments or one
argument. List operations which return a new sequence attempt to create an
instance of the actual implementation class. To do so, it assumes that the
constructor can be called with a single parameter, which is a sequence object
used as a data source.
If a derived class does not wish to comply with this requirement, all of the special methods supported by this class will need to be overridden; please consult the sources for information about the methods which need to be provided in that case.
UserString
objects¶
The class, UserString
acts as a wrapper around string objects.
The need for this class has been partially supplanted by the ability to
subclass directly from str
; however, this class can be easier
to work with because the underlying string is accessible as an
attribute.
-
class
collections.
UserString
([sequence])¶ Class that simulates a string or a Unicode string object. The instance’s content is kept in a regular string object, which is accessible via the
data
attribute ofUserString
instances. The instance’s contents are initially set to a copy of sequence. The sequence can be an instance ofbytes
,str
,UserString
(or a subclass) or an arbitrary sequence which can be converted into a string using the built-instr()
function.