Serializing python object to python source code

Question

I have a python dictionary that I'd like to serialize into python source code required to initialize that dictionary's keys and values.

I'm looking for something like json.dumps(), but the output format should be Python not JSON.

My object is very simple: it's a dictionary whose values are one of the following:

1. built-in type literals (strings, ints, etc.)
2. lists of literals

I know I can build one myself, but I suspect there are corner cases involving nested objects, keyword escaping, etc. so I'd prefer to use an existing library with those kinks already worked out.

Answer 1

In the most general case, it's not possible to dump an arbitrary Python object into Python source code. E.g. if the object is a socket, recreating the very same socket in a new object cannot work.

As aix explains, for the simple case, repr is explicitly designed to make reproducable source representations. As a slight generalization, the pprint module allows selective customization through the PrettyPrinter class.

If you want it even more general, and if your only requirement is that you get executable Python source code, I recommend to pickle the object into a string, and then generate the source code

obj = pickle.loads(%s)

where %s gets substituted with repr(pickle.dumps(obj)).