Variable names with dictionaries?

Question

Python beginner here. A question about dictionaries.

My input is a variable length list (eg a = ['eggs', 'ham', 'bacon'...] ) which functions as a list of search terms to be used on an imported CSV file.

I have defined four functions that match each term to various values from said CSV file. So, each input term will result in four lists of results.

I would like to store the input terms as a key in a dictionary (easy enough) and the resulting four lists as values (also easy enough).

However, because the input list is of variable length I would like to set up a function to define and name the dictionaries 'term1', 'term2', illustrated very basically thus:

term1 = { 'eggs' : [[list1] , [list2] , [list3] , [list4]] }
term2 = { 'ham' : [[list1] , [list2] , [list3] , [list4]] }
term3 = { 'bacon' : [[list1] , [list2] , [list3] , [list4]] }

Is there a) a way to name dictionaries like this?; and b) AND have them be globally available? If so, how? Any and all help very much appreciated.

Answer 1

Not an approach I'd recommend, but you can access both the local and global namespaces as dictionaries; e.g. you can add arbitrary variables to those namespaces using the familiar dict interface:

>>> globals()['foo'] = 'bar'
>>> foo
'bar'
>>> locals()['spam'] = 'eggs'
>>> spam
'eggs'

You will run into naming conflicts though. Also, how will the rest of your code know what global variables contain your results? They'll have to do indirect look-ups too!

You better just use one dictionary containing your results, and let that be the namespace instead of the global namespace.