The new Python 3.5 unpacking syntax makes a programmer’s life much easier.
Have you ever been in the following situation?
def froblog(**kwargs):
print(kwargs.items())
some_kwargs = {
'frob': 'lob',
'frux': 'flib',}
other_kwargs_from_somewhere_else = {
'floxblum': 'qux',}
more_kwargs = {
'flipblip': 'foobar',} # Etc., I think you get the point
some_kwargs.update(other_kwargs_from_somewhere_else)
some_kwargs.update(more_kwargs)
froblog(**some_kwargs)
dict_items([('flipblip', 'foobar'), ('frob', 'lob'), ('floxblum', 'qux'),
('frux', 'flib')])
Now, if we want to reuse some_kwargs, they are tainted with the other kwargs.
Of course, we could have constructed a new dict and used that to pass all the
dict key-value pairs that we want to pass. But either way it feels messy.
The solution
Python 3.5 introduced PEP 0448
titled “Additional Unpacking Generalizations”. It allows you to do the
following instead, assuming we’re using the same froblog method from above:
some_kwargs = {
'frob': 'lob',
'frux': 'flib',}
other_kwargs_from_somewhere_else = {
'floxblum': 'qux',}
more_kwargs = {
'flipblip': 'foobar',} # Etc., I think you get the point
froblog(**some_kwargs, **other_kwargs_from_somewhere_else, **more_kwargs)
It outputs the same as above:
dict_items([('flipblip', 'foobar'), ('frob', 'lob'), ('floxblum', 'qux'),
('frux', 'flib')])
This is considerably cleaner. For more awesome unpacking madness, do check out the PEP 0448 document examples.
Happy unpacking!