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How to handle unexpected KeyError when using Python 3.10's `dataclasses` with nested dictionaries?

👀 Views: 209 đŸ’Ŧ Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-11
python-3.x dataclasses keyerror Python

Does anyone know how to I can't seem to get I've looked through the documentation and I'm still confused about I'm currently working on a project using Python 3.10, where I'm leveraging `dataclasses` to manage some nested dictionaries... However, I'm working with a `KeyError` when trying to access certain attributes. Here's a simplified version of what I have: ```python from dataclasses import dataclass, field from typing import Dict, Any @dataclass class Config: settings: Dict[str, Any] = field(default_factory=dict) @dataclass class AppConfig: config: Config name: str config_data = AppConfig(config=Config(settings={ 'feature_x': {'enabled': True} }), name='TestApp') # Trying to access a nested dictionary value try: feature_enabled = config_data.config.settings['feature_x']['enabled'] print('Feature X enabled:', feature_enabled) except KeyError as e: print(f'KeyError: {e}') ``` When I run this, I sometimes get a `KeyError` for `'enabled'`, even though it seems present in the dictionary. I've double-checked the structure, and it appears correct. I suspect it may have something to do with how I am initializing the `Config` dataclass, but I need to quite put my finger on it. I've tried printing the entire `settings` dictionary before accessing the key and confirmed that it has the expected structure. The scenario seems to occur intermittently, which is really confusing. I'm not sure if this is a question with the way I'm using `dataclasses` or if there is something else at play here. Any insights would be greatly appreciated! This is part of a larger service I'm building. Any help would be greatly appreciated! This is for a microservice running on Ubuntu 22.04. Cheers for any assistance! Any examples would be super helpful. I'm coming from a different tech stack and learning Python. Cheers for any assistance!