Dictionaries and default values

Like this:

host = connectionDetails.get('host', someDefaultValue)

You can also use the defaultdict like so:

from collections import defaultdict
a = defaultdict(lambda: "default", key="some_value")
a["blabla"] => "default"
a["key"] => "some_value"

You can pass any ordinary function instead of lambda:

from collections import defaultdict
def a():
  return 4

b = defaultdict(a, key="some_value")
b['absent'] => 4
b['key'] => "some_value"

While .get() is a nice idiom, it's slower than if/else (and slower than try/except if presence of the key in the dictionary can be expected most of the time):

>>> timeit.timeit(setup="d={1:2, 3:4, 5:6, 7:8, 9:0}", 
... stmt="try:\n a=d[1]\nexcept KeyError:\n a=10")
0.07691968797894333
>>> timeit.timeit(setup="d={1:2, 3:4, 5:6, 7:8, 9:0}", 
... stmt="try:\n a=d[2]\nexcept KeyError:\n a=10")
0.4583777282275605
>>> timeit.timeit(setup="d={1:2, 3:4, 5:6, 7:8, 9:0}", 
... stmt="a=d.get(1, 10)")
0.17784020746671558
>>> timeit.timeit(setup="d={1:2, 3:4, 5:6, 7:8, 9:0}", 
... stmt="a=d.get(2, 10)")
0.17952161730158878
>>> timeit.timeit(setup="d={1:2, 3:4, 5:6, 7:8, 9:0}", 
... stmt="if 1 in d:\n a=d[1]\nelse:\n a=10")
0.10071221458065338
>>> timeit.timeit(setup="d={1:2, 3:4, 5:6, 7:8, 9:0}", 
... stmt="if 2 in d:\n a=d[2]\nelse:\n a=10")
0.06966537335119938

For multiple different defaults try this:

connectionDetails = { "host": "www.example.com" }
defaults = { "host": "127.0.0.1", "port": 8080 }

completeDetails = {}
completeDetails.update(defaults)
completeDetails.update(connectionDetails)
completeDetails["host"]  # ==> "www.example.com"
completeDetails["port"]  # ==> 8080