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Feature request: "flatten" operation for cattrs.gen

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
45/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
python
Domain
backend

Research direction

Start by reading the existing override function and the make_dict_structure_fn and make_dict_unstructure_fn entry points. Trace how field overrides are applied in both directions, then define the flatten behavior around the provided A and C example. Done means the proposed flatten option works for structure and unstructure while preserving existing behavior by default.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

For a thing at work, I implemented some [un]structure hook factories that wrap make_dict_structure_fn and make_dict_unstructure_fn to support flattening an attribute, like this:

@define
class A:
    a: int
    b: int

@define
class C:
    a: A
    c: int

converter = ...  # set up a converter with my wrappers

assert converter.unstructure(C(A(1, 2), 3)) == {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}

I'd like to upstream this support. The basic idea is to implement functionality similar to Serde's Struct flattening by extending the override function to take a flatten: bool argument that defaults to False and then adjusting make_dict_structure_fn and make_dict_unstructure_fn to use it.

I'm willing to work on this, but wanted to get feedback from folks here before I start.

Dominant language
Python
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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