How to efficiently manage user permissions in a nested dictionary for authentication while maintaining accessibility?
I'm building a feature where I've searched everywhere and can't find a clear answer... I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but During development of an authentication module for a web application, I need to store user permissions in a nested dictionary. The goal is to ensure that our system adheres to accessibility standards while allowing dynamic updates to user permissions based on role changes. To achieve this, I've structured my dictionary like so: ```python user_permissions = { 'admin': { 'read': True, 'write': True, 'execute': True }, 'editor': { 'read': True, 'write': True, 'execute': False }, 'viewer': { 'read': True, 'write': False, 'execute': False } } ``` I want to implement a function that can add or modify user roles while ensuring that the accessibility requirements are still met. This is crucial since my project includes users who rely on assistive technologies. So far, I've written a function as follows: ```python def update_permissions(role, permissions): if role not in user_permissions: user_permissions[role] = permissions else: user_permissions[role].update(permissions) ``` This seems to work for adding new roles, but I’m uncertain about how to handle the situation where I might inadvertently overwrite existing permissions, especially for sensitive roles like 'admin'. What’s the best practice here to ensure I maintain the integrity of permissions, particularly considering accessibility? I've also contemplated creating a backup of existing permissions before any modifications. However, I'm concerned about performance, especially as the size of the dictionary grows. Would using a deep copy be a better approach? Additionally, if a user is granted a new role, how can I ensure that their previous permissions are not lost? Any insights on handling this gracefully would be appreciated, especially any best practices around dictionary use in Python for authentication scenarios. I'm working on a CLI tool that needs to handle this. Any help would be greatly appreciated! The stack includes Python and several other technologies. Any suggestions would be helpful.