class RecursiveDict(UserDict): def __getitem__(self, k): if not isinstance(k, Iterable): return self.data[k] dest = self.data for j in k: dest = dest[j] return dest def __setitem__(self, k, v): if not isinstance(k, Iterable): return self.data[k] = v levels = len(k) dest = self.data for j in range(levels-1): if k[j] not in dest: dest[k[j]] = {} dest = dest[k[j]] dest[levels-1] = v