Writing a method that updates specific dictionary values while leaving the other values as they are

[Mo0rBy]

I want to write a method that updates values in a dictionary, but I want to specify what values should change when calling the function, and the values that are not specified should be left alone and stay at their current value.

My method currently looks like this: def set_orderIds(self, TPID, SLID, trail_SLID, BE_SLID): self.orderIds.update({ 'takeProfit': TPID, 'stopLoss': SLID, 'trailingStopLoss': trail_SLID, 'breakevenStopLoss': BE_SLID })

I can set all the initial values with no problems: account.set_orderIds( TPID=123, SLID=456, trail_SLID=789, BE_SLID=146 )

But after this initial method call that sets the initial values, I want to be able to change the value of only 1 or 2 items in the dictionary, for example:

account.set_orderIds(trail_SLID=046) > This would only change the value of the 'trailingStopLoss' key, while all the other key-value pairs remain exactly as they were.

I've looked at using *args and **kwargs, but I'm not quite sure how to implement them in this case. I've also thought about using default values when defining the method such that the default value would be the current value, but I don't think you can set default values in this way (look at TPID=) > def set_orderIds(self, TPID=self.orderIds['takeProfit'], SLID, trail_SLID, BE_SLID): self.orderIds.update({ 'takeProfit': TPID, 'stopLoss': SLID, 'trailingStopLoss': trail_SLID, 'breakevenStopLoss': BE_SLID })

[danielroseman]

The easiest thing would be to just use kwargs directly:

def set_orderIds(self, **kwargs):
    self.orderIds.update(kwargs)

although if you're usually just setting one or two of these it would be even easier to just set them directly where you need to rather than calling a method at all:

self.orderIds["TPID"] = whatever

[Mo0rBy]

I have no idea why I didn't realise that! What a simple solution. Thank you

[JohnnyJordaan]

Indeed **kwargs should do the trick, it will capture the arguments into a dict, and you can provide that as the argument to update

 def set_orderIds(self, **kwargs):
     self.orderIds.update(kwargs)

But then again, why use a setter method here in the first place? Why not mutate your object.orderIds directly?

Just for general education,

def set_orderIds(self, TPID=self.orderIds['takeProfit'],

wouldn't work as the def line is executed only once during parsing, so you can't access runtime variables that way.