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Handling Dictionary-Based Security Roles with Dynamic Updates in Python - Overriding Default Behavior

๐Ÿ‘€ Views: 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ Answers: 1 ๐Ÿ“… Created: 2025-09-09
python security dictionary permissions best-practices Python

I need some guidance on I'm wondering if anyone has experience with I'm trying to configure I'm learning this framework and I'm working on a personal project and Building an application that needs to dynamically manage user roles for security, I've opted to utilize a dictionary to store these roles... My current structure looks like this: ```python user_roles = { 'admin': ['create', 'read', 'update', 'delete'], 'editor': ['create', 'read', 'update'], 'viewer': ['read'] } ``` The challenge arises when I need to update the permissions dynamically based on some user actions, but I'm running into issues with ensuring that these changes reflect immediately without disrupting existing operations. I tried using the `setdefault` method to add new roles on-the-fly, but I'm not sure this is the best practice. Here's the code I experimented with: ```python user_roles.setdefault('guest', []).append('read') ``` This works for adding new roles, but I've noticed that if I want to override existing roles, it doesnโ€™t behave as expected. Whatโ€™s the best way to handle such updates while ensuring that existing permissions are preserved unless intentionally changed? Additionally, I need to implement a function that verifies if a user has the required permissions based on the role. I started something like this: ```python def has_permission(role, permission): return permission in user_roles.get(role, []) ``` This function seems straightforward, but I fear performance might be an issue if the dictionary grows large. Given that this is part of a security implementation, I want to ensure itโ€™s efficient and secure. Has anyone implemented a solution for a system like this? Any best practices or design patterns that would lend to more robust management of user roles and permissions in Python? Your insights would be greatly appreciated! For context: I'm using Python on macOS. Has anyone else encountered this? For reference, this is a production microservice. Thanks for your help in advance! I'm using Python 3.10 in this project. Cheers for any assistance! I'd be grateful for any help.