list - creating a defaultlist in python

Question

I'm trying to create a list equivalent for the very useful collections.defaultdict. The following design works nicely:

class defaultlist(list):
    def __init__(self, fx):
        self._fx = fx
    def __setitem__(self, index, value):
        while len(self) <= index:
            self.append(self._fx())
        list.__setitem__(self, index, value)

Here's how you use it:

>>> dl = defaultlist(lambda:'A')
>>> dl[2]='B'
>>> dl[4]='C'
>>> dl
['A', 'A', 'B', 'A', 'C']

What should I add to the defaultlist so as to support the following behavior?

>>> dl = defaultlist(dict)
>>> dl[2]['a'] = 1
>>> dl
[{}, {}, {'a':1}]

Answer 1

On the example you give, you first try to retrieve a non-existing value on the list, as you do dl[2]['a'], Python first retrieve the third (index 2) element on the list, then proceed to get the element named 'a' on that object - therefore you have to implement your automatic extending behavior to the __getitem__ method as well, like this:

class defaultlist(list):
    def __init__(self, fx):
        self._fx = fx
    def _fill(self, index):
        while len(self) <= index:
            self.append(self._fx())
    def __setitem__(self, index, value):
        self._fill(index)
        list.__setitem__(self, index, value)
    def __getitem__(self, index):
        self._fill(index)
        return list.__getitem__(self, index)