Hack pandas.DataFrame to have unstacked JSON structure

gistfile1.py

from pandas import DataFrame, MultiIndex

def __getattribute__(self, x):
    try:
        return _parent__getattribute__(self, x)
    except AttributeError:
        columns = _parent__getattribute__(self, 'columns')
        cols = list(set([x.split('.')[0] for x in columns]))
        if x in cols:
            _prefix = x + '.'
            df = self[[x for x in columns if x.startswith(_prefix)]].rename_axis(
                lambda x: x[len(_prefix):], axis=1)
            if len(_parent__getattribute__(df, 'columns')):
                return df
            else:
                return self[x]
        else:
            raise ValueError('{} not in {}'.format(x, cols))
_parent__getattribute__ = DataFrame.__getattribute__
DataFrame.__getattribute__ = __getattribute__

def __dir__(self):
    cols = list(set([x.split('.')[0] for x in self.columns]))
    return _parent__dir__(self) + list(cols)
_parent__dir__ = DataFrame.__dir__
DataFrame.__dir__ = __dir__

def unstack(x, prefix=""):
    if isinstance(x, dict):
        out = {}
        for key, val in x.items():
            z = unstack(val, prefix=key+'.')
            if isinstance(z, dict):
                for subkey, subval in z.items():
                    out[prefix+subkey] = subval
            else:
                out[prefix+key] = val
        return out
    elif isinstance(x, list):
        return unstack({'_'+str(i): val for i,val in enumerate(x)}, prefix=prefix)
    else:
        return x

def unwind(self):
    columns = MultiIndex.from_tuples([tuple(col.split('.', 1))
                                       for col in self.columns])
    return DataFrame(self.values,
                     index=self.index,
                     columns=columns)
DataFrame.unwind = unwind

# Example
#########

data = [{'state': 'Florida',
         'shortname': 'FL',
         'info': {
              'governor': 'Rick Scott'
         },
         'counties': [{'name': 'Dade', 'population': 12345},
                     {'name': 'Broward', 'population': 40000},
                     {'name': 'Palm Beach', 'population': 60000}]},
        {'state': 'Ohio',
         'shortname': 'OH',
         'info': {
              'governor': 'John Kasich'
         },
         'counties': [{'name': 'Summit', 'population': 1234},
                      {'name': 'Cuyahoga', 'population': 1337}]}]

df = DataFrame([unstack(x) for x in data])
print(df.counties._0)
print(df.counties.unwind().stack(0))