Struct class

struct.py

class Struct():
    """Create a custom class from a dictionary

    Usage
    -----
    Initialize empty, with a dictionary, and/or 
    with any number of key=value pairs

    Note
    ----
    Only converts top level of nested dicts
    """
    def __init__(self, entries={}, **kwargs):
        self.__dict__.update(entries)
        self.__dict__.update(kwargs)
    def __setitem__(self, k, v):
        self.__dict__[k] = v
    def __getitem__(self, k):
        return self.__dict__[k]
    def __repr__(self):
        return self.__dict__.__repr__()
    def keys(self):
        return self.__dict__.keys()
    def iteritems(self):
        return self.__dict__.iteritems()

struct2.py

import collections

class Struct(collections.MutableMapping):
    """Create a custom class from a dictionary

    Usage
    -----
    Initialize empty, with a dictionary, and/or 
    with any number of key=value pairs

    Note
    ----
    Only converts top level of nested dicts
    """
    def __init__(self, entries={}, **kwargs):
        self.__dict__.update(entries)
        self.__dict__.update(kwargs)
    def __setitem__(self, k, v):
        self.__dict__[k] = v
    def __getitem__(self, k):
        return self.__dict__[k]
    def __delitem__(self, k):
        return self.__dict__.__delitem__(k)
    def __iter__(self):
        return self.__dict__.__iter__()
    def __len__(self):
        return self.__dict__.__len__()
    def __repr__(self):
        return self.__dict__.__repr__()
    def keys(self):
        return self.__dict__.keys()
    def iteritems(self):
        return self.__dict__.iteritems()

This class is basically a dictionary but with the added feature that you can access keys as attributes, like foo.bar. The dictionary-style foo['bar'] works, too.

Replace iteritems with items if you use it with Python 3.

The second implementation uses Abstract Base Classes to make sure that the Struct actually has the same interface as a dictionary (includes delitem, iter, and len methods).