Existence of mutable named tuple in Python?

Question

There is a mutable alternative to collections.namedtuple – recordclass. It can be installed from PyPI:

pip3 install recordclass

It has the same API and memory footprint as namedtuple and it supports assignments (It should be faster as well). For example:

from recordclass import recordclass

Point = recordclass('Point', 'x y')

>>> p = Point(1, 2)
>>> p
Point(x=1, y=2)
>>> print(p.x, p.y)
1 2
>>> p.x += 2; p.y += 3; print(p)
Point(x=3, y=5)

recordclass (since 0.5) support typehints:

from recordclass import recordclass, RecordClass

class Point(RecordClass):
   x: int
   y: int

>>> Point.__annotations__
{'x':int, 'y':int}
>>> p = Point(1, 2)
>>> p
Point(x=1, y=2)
>>> print(p.x, p.y)
1 2
>>> p.x += 2; p.y += 3; print(p)
Point(x=3, y=5)

There is a more complete example (it also includes performance comparisons).

Recordclass library now provides another variant -- recordclass.make_dataclass factory function.

recordclass and make_dataclass can produce classes, whose instances occupy less memory than __slots__-based instances. This is can be important for the instances with attribute values, which has not intended to have reference cycles. It may help reduce memory usage if you need to create millions of instances. Here is an illustrative example.

types.SimpleNamespace was introduced in Python 3.3 and supports the requested requirements.

from types import SimpleNamespace
t = SimpleNamespace(foo='bar')
t.ham = 'spam'
print(t)
namespace(foo='bar', ham='spam')
print(t.foo)
'bar'
import pickle
with open('/tmp/pickle', 'wb') as f:
    pickle.dump(t, f)

As a Pythonic alternative for this task, since Python-3.7, you can use dataclasses module that not only behaves like a mutable NamedTuple, because they use normal class definitions they also support other classes features.

From PEP-0557:

Although they use a very different mechanism, Data Classes can be thought of as "mutable namedtuples with defaults". Because Data Classes use normal class definition syntax, you are free to use inheritance, metaclasses, docstrings, user-defined methods, class factories, and other Python class features.

A class decorator is provided which inspects a class definition for variables with type annotations as defined in PEP 526, "Syntax for Variable Annotations". In this document, such variables are called fields. Using these fields, the decorator adds generated method definitions to the class to support instance initialization, a repr, comparison methods, and optionally other methods as described in the Specification section. Such a class is called a Data Class, but there's really nothing special about the class: the decorator adds generated methods to the class and returns the same class it was given.

This feature is introduced in PEP-0557 that you can read about it in more details on provided documentation link.

Example:

In [20]: from dataclasses import dataclass

In [21]: @dataclass
    ...: class InventoryItem:
    ...:     '''Class for keeping track of an item in inventory.'''
    ...:     name: str
    ...:     unit_price: float
    ...:     quantity_on_hand: int = 0
    ...: 
    ...:     def total_cost(self) -> float:
    ...:         return self.unit_price * self.quantity_on_hand
    ...:    

Demo:

In [23]: II = InventoryItem('bisc', 2000)

In [24]: II
Out[24]: InventoryItem(name='bisc', unit_price=2000, quantity_on_hand=0)

In [25]: II.name = 'choco'

In [26]: II.name
Out[26]: 'choco'

In [27]: 

In [27]: II.unit_price *= 3

In [28]: II.unit_price
Out[28]: 6000

In [29]: II
Out[29]: InventoryItem(name='choco', unit_price=6000, quantity_on_hand=0)

The latest namedlist 1.7 passes all of your tests with both Python 2.7 and Python 3.5 as of Jan 11, 2016. It is a pure python implementation whereas the recordclass is a C extension. Of course, it depends on your requirements whether a C extension is preferred or not.

Your tests (but also see the note below):

from __future__ import print_function
import pickle
import sys
from namedlist import namedlist

Point = namedlist('Point', 'x y')
p = Point(x=1, y=2)

print('1. Mutation of field values')
p.x *= 10
p.y += 10
print('p: {}, {}\n'.format(p.x, p.y))

print('2. String')
print('p: {}\n'.format(p))

print('3. Representation')
print(repr(p), '\n')

print('4. Sizeof')
print('size of p:', sys.getsizeof(p), '\n')

print('5. Access by name of field')
print('p: {}, {}\n'.format(p.x, p.y))

print('6. Access by index')
print('p: {}, {}\n'.format(p[0], p[1]))

print('7. Iterative unpacking')
x, y = p
print('p: {}, {}\n'.format(x, y))

print('8. Iteration')
print('p: {}\n'.format([v for v in p]))

print('9. Ordered Dict')
print('p: {}\n'.format(p._asdict()))

print('10. Inplace replacement (update?)')
p._update(x=100, y=200)
print('p: {}\n'.format(p))

print('11. Pickle and Unpickle')
pickled = pickle.dumps(p)
unpickled = pickle.loads(pickled)
assert p == unpickled
print('Pickled successfully\n')

print('12. Fields\n')
print('p: {}\n'.format(p._fields))

print('13. Slots')
print('p: {}\n'.format(p.__slots__))

Output on Python 2.7

1. Mutation of field values  
p: 10, 12

2. String  
p: Point(x=10, y=12)

3. Representation  
Point(x=10, y=12) 

4. Sizeof  
size of p: 64 

5. Access by name of field  
p: 10, 12

6. Access by index  
p: 10, 12

7. Iterative unpacking  
p: 10, 12

8. Iteration  
p: [10, 12]

9. Ordered Dict  
p: OrderedDict([('x', 10), ('y', 12)])

10. Inplace replacement (update?)  
p: Point(x=100, y=200)

11. Pickle and Unpickle  
Pickled successfully

12. Fields  
p: ('x', 'y')

13. Slots  
p: ('x', 'y')

The only difference with Python 3.5 is that the namedlist has become smaller, the size is 56 (Python 2.7 reports 64).

Note that I have changed your test 10 for in-place replacement. The namedlist has a _replace() method which does a shallow copy, and that makes perfect sense to me because the namedtuple in the standard library behaves the same way. Changing the semantics of the _replace() method would be confusing. In my opinion the _update() method should be used for in-place updates. Or maybe I failed to understand the intent of your test 10?

It seems like the answer to this question is no.

Below is pretty close, but it's not technically mutable. This is creating a new namedtuple() instance with an updated x value:

Point = namedtuple('Point', ['x', 'y'])
p = Point(0, 0)
p = p._replace(x=10) 

On the other hand, you can create a simple class using __slots__ that should work well for frequently updating class instance attributes:

class Point:
    __slots__ = ['x', 'y']
    def __init__(self, x, y):
        self.x = x
        self.y = y

To add to this answer, I think __slots__ is good use here because it's memory efficient when you create lots of class instances. The only downside is that you can't create new class attributes.

Here's one relevant thread that illustrates the memory efficiency - Dictionary vs Object - which is more efficient and why?

The quoted content in the answer of this thread is a very succinct explanation why __slots__ is more memory efficient - Python slots

The following is a good solution for Python 3: A minimal class using __slots__ and Sequence abstract base class; does not do fancy error detection or such, but it works, and behaves mostly like a mutable tuple (except for typecheck).

from collections import Sequence

class NamedMutableSequence(Sequence):
    __slots__ = ()

    def __init__(self, *a, **kw):
        slots = self.__slots__
        for k in slots:
            setattr(self, k, kw.get(k))

        if a:
            for k, v in zip(slots, a):
                setattr(self, k, v)

    def __str__(self):
        clsname = self.__class__.__name__
        values = ', '.join('%s=%r' % (k, getattr(self, k))
                           for k in self.__slots__)
        return '%s(%s)' % (clsname, values)

    __repr__ = __str__

    def __getitem__(self, item):
        return getattr(self, self.__slots__[item])

    def __setitem__(self, item, value):
        return setattr(self, self.__slots__[item], value)

    def __len__(self):
        return len(self.__slots__)

class Point(NamedMutableSequence):
    __slots__ = ('x', 'y')

Example:

>>> p = Point(0, 0)
>>> p.x = 10
>>> p
Point(x=10, y=0)
>>> p.x *= 10
>>> p
Point(x=100, y=0)

If you want, you can have a method to create the class too (though using an explicit class is more transparent):

def namedgroup(name, members):
    if isinstance(members, str):
        members = members.split()
    members = tuple(members)
    return type(name, (NamedMutableSequence,), {'__slots__': members})

Example:

>>> Point = namedgroup('Point', ['x', 'y'])
>>> Point(6, 42)
Point(x=6, y=42)

---

In Python 2 you need to adjust it slightly - if you inherit from Sequence, the class will have a __dict__ and the __slots__ will stop from working.

The solution in Python 2 is to not inherit from Sequence, but object. If isinstance(Point, Sequence) == True is desired, you need to register the NamedMutableSequence as a base class to Sequence:

Sequence.register(NamedMutableSequence)

Tuples are by definition immutable.

You can however make a dictionary subclass where you can access the attributes with dot-notation;

In [1]: %cpaste
Pasting code; enter '--' alone on the line to stop or use Ctrl-D.
:class AttrDict(dict):
:
:    def __getattr__(self, name):
:        return self[name]
:
:    def __setattr__(self, name, value):
:        self[name] = value
:--

In [2]: test = AttrDict()

In [3]: test.a = 1

In [4]: test.b = True

In [5]: test
Out[5]: {'a': 1, 'b': True}