Do a recursive get over the keys of nested dictionaries

rget.py

# I always have problems with the names, please help me :)

def rget(dictionary, *args):
    '''Recursive `.get()` function.

    Do a recursive get over the keys of nested dictionaries.

    >>> things = {'a': {'b': {'c': 'd'}}}
    >>> rget(things, 'a', 'b', 'c')
    'd'

    >>> rget(things, 'a', 'b')
    {'c': 'd'}

    >>> rget(things, 'a')
    {'b': {'c': 'd'}}

    >>> rget(things, 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd')
    >>> rget(things, 'fake_key')
    >>> rget(things, 'a', 'fake_key')
    '''
    to_be_returned = None

    if args[1:]:
        to_be_returned = rget(dictionary.get(args[0]), *args[1:])
    elif args[0:] and isinstance(dictionary, dict):
        to_be_returned = dictionary.get(args[0])

    return to_be_returned

def rget(dictionary, *args):
return reduce(lambda d, key: d.get(key), args, dictionary)

Nice! But...

alex turtle:/tmp/2839610 [1012:1]% python -m doctest rget.py
**********************************************************************
File "rget.py", line 16, in rget.rget
Failed example:
    rget(things, 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd')
Exception raised:
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "/usr/lib/python2.7/doctest.py", line 1254, in __run
        compileflags, 1) in test.globs
      File "<doctest rget.rget[4]>", line 1, in <module>
        rget(things, 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd')
      File "rget.py", line 20, in rget
        return reduce(lambda d, key: d.get(key), args, dictionary)
      File "rget.py", line 20, in <lambda>
        return reduce(lambda d, key: d.get(key), args, dictionary)
    AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'get'
**********************************************************************
1 items had failures:
   1 of   7 in rget.rget
***Test Failed*** 1 failures.```

What's "things"?

The doctest example variable?

If you want it to return None if it can't find the key or if it tries to access a keys of something that's not a dict, I'd just put the reduce in a try block.

FTR because we've already talked about this by chat.

This is exactly what I'm trying to avoid, the need of use try-except blocks or nested ifs.