What is the right way to treat Python argparse.Namespace() as a dictionary?
You can access the namespace's dictionary with vars():
>>> import argparse
>>> args = argparse.Namespace()
>>> args.foo = 1
>>> args.bar = [1,2,3]
>>> d = vars(args)
>>> d
{'foo': 1, 'bar': [1, 2, 3]}
You can modify the dictionary directly if you wish:
>>> d['baz'] = 'store me'
>>> args.baz
'store me'
Yes, it is okay to access the __dict__ attribute. It is a well-defined, tested, and guaranteed behavior.
Straight from the horse's mouth:
If you prefer to have dict-like view of the attributes, you can use the standard Python idiom,
vars()
:>>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser() >>> parser.add_argument('--foo') >>> args = parser.parse_args(['--foo', 'BAR']) >>> vars(args) {'foo': 'BAR'}
— The Python Standard Library, 16.4.4.6. The Namespace object