middle¶
Flexible, extensible Python data structures for general usage. Get data in and out, reliably, without boilerplate and with speed!
middle stands on the shoulders of attrs and aims to be as simple as possible to get data from complex objects to Python primitives and vice-versa, with validators, converters, a lot of sugar and other utilities! middle can be used with your preferred web framework, background job application, configuration parser and more!
Quick peak¶
The most simple example of middle and some of its features (using Python 3.6+ syntax):
>>> import typing
>>> import middle
>>> class Address(middle.Model):
... street_name: str
... number: typing.Optional[int]
... city: str
>>> class Person(middle.Model):
... name: str
... age: int
... address: typing.Dict[str, Address]
>>> data = {
... "name": "John Doe",
... "age": 42,
... "address": {
... "home": {
... "street_name": "Foo St",
... "number": None,
... "city": "Python Park"
... },
... "work": {
... "street_name": "Bar Blvd",
... "number": "1337",
... "city": "Park City"
... }
... }
... }
>>> person = Person(data)
>>> person
Person(name='John Doe', age=42, address={'home': Address(street_name='Foo St', number=None, city='Python Park'), 'work': Address(street_name='Bar Blvd', number=1337, city='Park City')})
>>> middle.asdict(person)
{'name': 'John Doe', 'age': 42, 'address': {'home': {'street_name': 'Foo St', 'number': None, 'city': 'Python Park'}, 'work': {'street_name': 'Bar Blvd', 'number': 1337, 'city': 'Park City'}}}
Wanted a more complex example, with Python 3.5 compatible syntax? For sure!
>>> from typing import Dict, List
>>> import middle
>>> class Game(middle.Model):
... name = middle.field(type=str)
... score = middle.field(type=float, minimum=0, maximum=10)
... resolution_tested = middle.field(type=str, pattern="^\d+x\d+$")
... genre = middle.field(type=List[str], unique_items=True)
... rating = middle.field(type=Dict[str, float], max_properties=5)
>>> data = {
... "name": "Cities: Skylines",
... "score": 9.0,
... "resolution_tested": "1920x1200",
... "genre": ["Simulators", "City Building"],
... "rating": {
... "IGN": 8.5,
... "Gamespot": 8.0,
... "Steam": 4.5
... }
... }
>>> game = Game(**data)
>>> game
Game(name='Cities: Skylines', score=9.0, resolution_tested='1920x1200', genre=['Simulators', 'City Building'], rating={'IGN': 8.5, 'Gamespot': 8.0, 'Steam': 4.5})
>>> middle.asdict(game)
{'name': 'Cities: Skylines', 'score': 9.0, 'resolution_tested': '1920x1200', 'genre': ['Simulators', 'City Building'], 'rating': {'IGN': 8.5, 'Gamespot': 8.0, 'Steam': 4.5}}
middle is flexible enough to understand Enum, nested models and a large variety of types declared on the typing module out of the box. Also, you can extend it to your own classes!
Warning
IMPORTANT: middle is in very early stages of development. There’s a lot of functionalities that needs to be implemented and some known misbehaviors to be addressed, not to mention it needs a lot of testing before moving to any other status rather than alpha.
Starting with middle
Advanced topics
Useful links¶
Inspirations and thanks¶
Some libs that inspired the creation of middle:
- attrs: how such a simple library can be such flexible, extendable and fast?
- cattrs: for its speed on creating
attrsinstances fromdictand to instances again; - pydantic: for such pythonic and beautiful approach on creating classes using
typinghints; - mashmallow: it is one of the most feature rich modelling APIs I’ve seen;
- apistar: it’s almost magical!
- Sanic: “Gotta go fast!”
- ionelmc/cookiecutter-pylibrary: The most complete (or interesting)
cookiecuttertemplate I found so far (make sure to read this article too);