import itertools as it def merge_dicts_recursively(*dicts): """ Creates a dict whose keyset is the union of all the input dictionaries. The value for each key is based on the first dict in the list with that key. dicts later in the list have higher priority When values are dictionaries, it is applied recursively """ result = dict() all_items = it.chain(*[d.items() for d in dicts]) for key, value in all_items: if key in result and isinstance(result[key], dict) and isinstance(value, dict): result[key] = merge_dicts_recursively(result[key], value) else: result[key] = value return result def soft_dict_update(d1, d2): """ Adds key values pairs of d2 to d1 only when d1 doesn't already have that key """ for key, value in list(d2.items()): if key not in d1: d1[key] = value