py-openbsd's DoubleAssociation

I briefly covered this structure last time, but didn't do it justice.  The idea of a two-way dictionary structure (keys and values are both keys) intrigued me. I wanted to give it a spin with a real world example.

I've chosen a simple example with a few domain name (common names) and ip addresses:

# dblassoc.py

import openbsd

# some ip addrsses paired with domains
ips = {'google':(0x4a7d1393, 0xd8ef3d68),
       'openbsd':(0x8ef40c2a,),
       'freebsd':(0x45935321,),
       'yahoo':(0xd1bf5d34, 0xd183249e)}

# OK, we can now make the DoubleAssociation
ipsbothways = openbsd.utils.DoubleAssociation(ips)

print "ipsbothways['yahoo'] = " + str(ipsbothways['yahoo'])

# fair enough, but nothing we couldn't get from the dictionary

# try to query on an ip address to get a domain name
print "ipsbothways[(0x8ef40c2a,)] = " + ipsbothways[(0x8ef40c2a,)]

# unlike a normal dictionary, DoubleAssociation gives everything
# back with the keys() method

for keyx in ipsbothways.keys():
    try:
        if 0xd183249e in keyx:
            print "domain is " + ipsbothways[keyx]
            break
    except TypeError:
        print "TypeError:  " + keyx

Python 2.5.4 (r254:67916, Jul  1 2009, 11:37:21)
[GCC 3.3.5 (propolice)] on openbsd4
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import dblassoc
ipsbothways['yahoo'] = (3518979380L, 3515032734L)
ipsbothways[(0x8ef40c2a,)] = openbsd
TypeError:  google
TypeError:  openbsd
TypeError:  yahoo
domain is yahoo
>>>

The one thing you have to look out for is the treatment of everything in the structure as a key - that's why I had to catch the TypeError.  Everything is a value, too.  The values and keys methods yield the same results.

In real life, if you had 30 or 50 or 1000 ip addresses, this would come in handy.  Likewise for doctor-patient records, etc. (although the grouping of patients has to be unique, so that may not work after all - best to test both "sides" of the structure for exclusivity).