On 04/06/2015 12:43 PM, boB Stepp wrote:
I was breaking down longer functions into smaller ones. Along the way
I noticed I was passing an entire dictionary from one function to
another. I only needed to pass one particular value, not the whole
dictionary, so that is how I got into the issue I asked about.
Just to reinforce something you probably know well, passing a dictionary
takes no more memory or time than passing an item from that dictionary.
The real choice is whether the called function should dealing with a
single item or with a dictionary. It would have a different name in
each case, and a different set of reuse possibilities.
I know the following example abuses the dictionary, using it as though
it were an instance of class Person. It's just what popped into my head.
def check_person(person):
if person["name"] in list_of_preferred:
do_something...
return True
return False
def check_name(name):
if name in list_of_preferred:
do_something...
return True
return False
In the first case, the function would be able use other elements of the
dictionary, like "email_address" or "phone_number".
In the second case, you could call the function from someplace that has
only names, and isn't worried about what dict the name might be part of.
--
DaveA
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