# In your hand you have a dict instance representing the database 'object' dbo={'m':{'d':{'v':{'version':1}}}} # You know this thing corresponds to a table whose rows follow some convention # indicating 'depth', say '__' hapens to be the seperator. # You wan't to access a particular element, but you know it only by its column # name 'm__d__v__version' name='m__d__v__version' version = reduce(dict.get, name.split('__'), dbo) assert version == 1 foo = reduce(dict.get, 'm__d__v__foo'.split('__'), dbo) assert foo == None