Create dictionary from list of variables

Question

I'm looking for a way to create a dictionary without writing the key explicitly. I want to create a function that gets the number of variables and creates a dictionary where the variable names are the keys and their values are the variable values.

Instead of writing the following function:

def foo():     first_name = "daniel"     second_name = "daniel"     id = 1     return {'first_name':first_name, 'second_name':second_name} 

I want to get the same result with function :

create_dict_from_variables(first_name, second_name) 

Is there any way to do so?

Answer 1

You can't do it without writing at least the variable names, but a shorthand can be written like this:

>>> foo = 1 >>> bar = 2 >>> d = dict(((k, eval(k)) for k in ('foo', 'bar'))) >>> d {'foo': 1, 'bar': 2} 

or as a function:

def createDict(*args):      return dict(((k, eval(k)) for k in args))  >>> createDict('foo','bar') {'foo': 1, 'bar': 2} 

you can also use globals() instead of eval():

>>> dict(((k, globals()[k]) for k in ('foo', 'bar'))) 

Answer 2

You can use locals, but I would recommend against it. Do it explicitly.

>>> import this [...] Explicit is better than implicit. [...] 

Your code will generally be better, more predictable, less prone to breaking and more comprehensible if you do it explicitly.