Configuring an object via a dictionary

Hi,

I am initialising an object via the following:

    def __init__(self, config):

        self.connection = None

        self.source_name = config['source_name']
        self.server_host = config['server_host']
        self.server_port = config['server_port']
        self.user_base = config['user_base']
        self.user_identifier = config['user_identifier']
        self.group_base = config['group_base']
        self.group_identifier = config['group_identifier']
        self.owner_base = config['owner_base']

However, some entries in the configuration might be missing.  What is
the best way of dealing with this?

I could of course simply test each element of the dictionary before
trying to use.  I could also just write

       self.config = config

but then addressing the elements will add more clutter to the code.

However, with a view to asking forgiveness rather than
permission, is there some simple way just to assign the dictionary
elements which do in fact exist to self-variables?

Or should I be doing this completely differently?

Cheers,

Loris

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