Local Variable Creation on the Fly

Before I started on this adventure in Python I had designed a script in Bash to see if it worked and establish the structure of the program. I might throw that stuff up at some stage as well as there may well be some nifty solutions to problems in there. In particular I was very pleased at how I was able to generate variables on the fly based on how many entries in a list I had, for example.

Having moved to Python this was more of a challenge, but I managed to throw something together using the "vars()" local variable ability. 

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if ap_members.count((packet.info, packet.addr2)) == 0: # If not found before add and setup storage

ap_members.append((packet.info, packet.addr2))

vars()[packet.info + "_" + packet.addr2 + "_working"] = deque(maxlen=2)

vars()[packet.info + "_" + packet.addr2 + "_list"] = 0

vars()[packet.info + "_" + packet.addr2 + "_average"] = make_av() # Stats

vars()[packet.info + "_" + packet.addr2 + "_power"] = make_av()

vars()[packet.info + "_" + packet.addr2 + "_list"] += 1 # Tracks num of beacons per AP

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This is just a little code example of the principle which is implemented continually through the program I am working on. Here I have a stream of packets coming in and I want to create a series of variables every time a new link is found, i.e. every time a client and an Access Point talk to each other. If the "packet.info" (SSID) and "packet.addr2" (destination address)  has not been seen before then it is added to the list of known associations and has a deque, a list and two stats instances created.

Using this approach any time a new variable needs created I jut append with a different "_x" term and define it as I see fit. Now any time the "packet.info" and "packet.addr2" fields are fulfilled the information is added for that combination and that combination alone.

I have since been told that my solution would have been better utilising a dictionary and a series of lists but I disagree. Once you realise what this code is doing it is very very easy to start adapting it and adding new variables. The description of what each variable does is clear as day and you can guarantee it is going to be created irrespective of how many times it is called. Yes it clutters the screen somewhat, but I think it's a fair trade off.