namedtuple

A namedtuple is a data type in the collections module. It is a tuple subclass that allows you to create immutable objects with named fields. This improves code readability by providing meaningful names for each element and making the code more explicit.

Syntax

namedtuple(typename, field_names)

• typename: The name of the new tuple subclass.
• field_names: It represents the names of the fields in the named tuple.

Additional Methods

There are 3 specific namedtuple methods in addition to the standard methods inherited from tuples. All methods begin with an underscore to avoid conflicts with field names.

-._make(iterable): (Class method) Creates a new instance based on an existing sequence or iterable.

-._asdict(): Returns a dict with matching field names and values.

-._replace(kwarg): Returns a new instance with fields replaced by the value provided as a keyword argument.

There are 2 specific attributes ._fields and _field_defaults that will allow you respectively to list field names and to return a dict with field names related to their default values.

Example

In the following example, a namedtuple codecademyStudent with two fields (username and courses) to create two student instances is created. Two sentences will then be displayed about each student and their attributes.

from collections import namedtuple

codecademyStudent = namedtuple('codecademyStudent', ['username', 'courses'])

student1 = codecademyStudent(username='Foo', courses=['Python', 'Computer Science'])
student2 = codecademyStudent(username='Bar', courses=['Javascript', 'Web Development'])

print("Student 1:", "Username:", student1.username, "| Courses involvement:", student1.courses)
print("Student 2:", "Username:", student2.username, "| Courses involvement:", student2.courses)

The above example results in the following output:

Student 1: Username: Foo | Courses involvement: ['Python', 'Computer Science']
Student 2: Username: Bar | Courses involvement: ['Javascript', 'Web Development']

Codebyte Example

The following example creates a namedtuple instance from an iterable, then changes one of its assigned values, and returns a dict with the default preset values.

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