Allow dicts to be serialized as str in kwargs

Author: rmjarvis

piff/readers.py

@@ -63,7 +63,12 @@ def read_struct(self, name):
         cols = self._fits[extname].get_colnames()
         data = self._fits[extname].read()
         assert len(data) == 1
-        return dict([ (col, data[col][0]) for col in cols ])
+        struct = dict([ (col, data[col][0]) for col in cols ])
+        # If any dicts were converted to str, convert back.
+        for k,v in struct.items():
+            if isinstance(v, str) and v[0] == '{':
+                struct[k] = eval(v)
+        return struct
 
     def read_table(self, name, metadata=None):
         """Load a table as a numpy array.

piff/writers.py

@@ -72,6 +72,8 @@ def write_struct(self, name, struct):
             # Don't add values that are None to the table.
             if value is None:
                 continue
+            if isinstance(value, dict):
+                value = repr(value)
             dt = make_dtype(key, value)
             value = adjust_value(value, dt)
             cols.append([value])