Dispatch table
A dispatch table is a mapping from operation or case identifiers to callable implementations selected and invoked at runtime.
Python Workout: 50 ten-minute exercises
A dispatch table is a mapping from keys representing operations or cases to callable implementations selected at runtime.
- How it is used
- Maps user-selected operators or menu options to functions without branching through a growing chain of conditionals.
- How deep it goes
- Explains dictionary-based lookup, input parsing, invocation, maxsplit, and dynamic **kwargs construction, but not deeper dispatch internals.
- Examples
- Uses a prefix calculator with arithmetic operators and a dynamically assembled zero-argument menu.
- What you can do after
- Build it from scratch using Python dictionaries to register callable handlers and route parsed input to them.
Read how Python Workout: 50 ten-minute exercises explains dispatch table →
Python Workout, Second Edition
A dispatch table is a mapping from selectable operation identifiers to callable implementations that can be looked up and invoked.
- How it is used
- Maps operator or menu identifiers to functions so input selects behavior without a growing if/elif chain.
- How deep it goes
- Explains hard-coded and dynamic tables, lookup-and-call syntax, input unpacking, and maxsplit, but not broader dispatch architecture.
- Examples
- Uses an arithmetic calculator and a zero-argument menu whose keyword arguments provide selectable functions.
- What you can do after
- Build calculator and menu dispatchers by registering functions, parsing selections, and invoking the selected callable.
Read how Python Workout, Second Edition explains dispatch table →
Related concepts
- operator moduleuses · The operator module is a Python standard-library module providing function forms of built-in operators and related operations.
- named argumentuses · A named argument is a function or command argument supplied by explicitly associating its value with a parameter name rather than relying solely on position.
- **kwargsuses · **kwargs is Python function-parameter syntax that collects arbitrary keyword arguments into a dictionary keyed by their names.
- Mapuses · A map is an associative data structure that stores key-value pairs and supports retrieving values by key.
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