python - Case insensitive dictionary

Question

I'd like my dictionary to be case insensitive.

I have this example code:

text = "practice changing the color"

words = {'color': 'colour',
        'practice': 'practise'}

def replace(words,text):

    keys = words.keys()

    for i in keys:
        text= text.replace(i ,words[i])
    return  text

text = replace(words,text)

print text

Output = practise changing the colour

I'd like another string, "practice changing the Color", (where Color starts with a capital) to also give the same output.

I believe there is a general way to convert to lowercase using mydictionary[key.lower()] but I'm not sure how to best integrate this into my existing code. (If this would be a reasonable, simple approach anyway).

Answer 1

The currently approved answer doesn't work for a lot of cases, so it cannot be used as a drop-in dict replacement. Some tricky points in getting a proper dict replacement:

• overloading all of the methods that involve keys
• properly handling non-string keys
• properly handling the constructor of the class

The following should work much better:

class CaseInsensitiveDict(dict):
    @classmethod
    def _k(cls, key):
        return key.lower() if isinstance(key, basestring) else key

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(CaseInsensitiveDict, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self._convert_keys()
    def __getitem__(self, key):
        return super(CaseInsensitiveDict, self).__getitem__(self.__class__._k(key))
    def __setitem__(self, key, value):
        super(CaseInsensitiveDict, self).__setitem__(self.__class__._k(key), value)
    def __delitem__(self, key):
        return super(CaseInsensitiveDict, self).__delitem__(self.__class__._k(key))
    def __contains__(self, key):
        return super(CaseInsensitiveDict, self).__contains__(self.__class__._k(key))
    def has_key(self, key):
        return super(CaseInsensitiveDict, self).has_key(self.__class__._k(key))
    def pop(self, key, *args, **kwargs):
        return super(CaseInsensitiveDict, self).pop(self.__class__._k(key), *args, **kwargs)
    def get(self, key, *args, **kwargs):
        return super(CaseInsensitiveDict, self).get(self.__class__._k(key), *args, **kwargs)
    def setdefault(self, key, *args, **kwargs):
        return super(CaseInsensitiveDict, self).setdefault(self.__class__._k(key), *args, **kwargs)
    def update(self, E={}, **F):
        super(CaseInsensitiveDict, self).update(self.__class__(E))
        super(CaseInsensitiveDict, self).update(self.__class__(**F))
    def _convert_keys(self):
        for k in list(self.keys()):
            v = super(CaseInsensitiveDict, self).pop(k)
            self.__setitem__(k, v)