Answer by Hedde van der Heide for How to use a dot "." to access members of dictionary?

Not a direct answer to the OP's question, but inspired by and perhaps useful for some.. I've created an object-based solution using the internal __dict__ (In no way optimized code)

payload = {"name": "John","location": {"lat": 53.12312312,"long": 43.21345112    },"numbers": [        {"role": "home","number": "070-12345678"        },        {"role": "office","number": "070-12345679"        }    ]}class Map(object):"""    Dot style access to object members, access raw values    with an underscore e.g.    class Foo(Map):        def foo(self):            return self.get('foo') +'bar'    obj = Foo(**{'foo': 'foo'})    obj.foo => 'foobar'    obj._foo => 'foo'"""    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):        for arg in args:            if isinstance(arg, dict):                for k, v in arg.iteritems():                    self.__dict__[k] = v                    self.__dict__['_'+ k] = v        if kwargs:            for k, v in kwargs.iteritems():                self.__dict__[k] = v                self.__dict__['_'+ k] = v    def __getattribute__(self, attr):        if hasattr(self, 'get_'+ attr):            return object.__getattribute__(self, 'get_'+ attr)()        else:            return object.__getattribute__(self, attr)    def get(self, key):        try:            return self.__dict__.get('get_'+ key)()        except (AttributeError, TypeError):            return self.__dict__.get(key)    def __repr__(self):        return u"<{name} object>".format(            name=self.__class__.__name__        )class Number(Map):    def get_role(self):        return self.get('role')    def get_number(self):        return self.get('number')class Location(Map):    def get_latitude(self):        return self.get('lat') + 1    def get_longitude(self):        return self.get('long') + 1class Item(Map):    def get_name(self):        return self.get('name') +" Doe"    def get_location(self):        return Location(**self.get('location'))    def get_numbers(self):        return [Number(**n) for n in self.get('numbers')]# Testsobj = Item({'foo': 'bar'}, **payload)assert type(obj) == Itemassert obj._name == "John"assert obj.name == "John Doe"assert type(obj.location) == Locationassert obj.location._lat == 53.12312312assert obj.location._long == 43.21345112assert obj.location.latitude == 54.12312312assert obj.location.longitude == 44.21345112for n in obj.numbers:    assert type(n) == Number    if n.role == 'home':        assert n.number == "070-12345678"    if n.role == 'office':        assert n.number == "070-12345679"