Expert Python Programming - Third Edition

namedtuple

namedtuple is a class factory that takes a type name and a list of attributes and creates a class out of it. The class can then be used to instantiate a tuple-like object and also provides accessors for its elements, as follows:

>>> from collections import namedtuple 
>>> Customer = namedtuple(
...     'Customer',
...     'firstname lastname'
... )
>>> c = Customer('Tarek', 'Ziadé')
>>> c.firstname
'Tarek'  

As shown in the preceding example, it can be used to create records that are easier to write compared to a custom class that may require boilerplate code to initialize values. On the other hand, it is based on tuple, so gaining access to its elements by index is a quick process. The generated class can also be sub-classed to add more ...