no way to prevent state_set from removes existing attributes

[fleXible]

Hi,

using state.set("domain.entity", "new state") removes existing attributes. It is possible to supply an attribute dict, but there was no way of collecting all existing attributes from a state. state.get() only supported pulling a single attribute by name.

Also state_get() would not return the full State object, but only the state as string or the attribute value.

As a possible way to fix this, I did some changes:

• Add states object, known from template extensions to be the new way of simple state retrievals
• Add new method get_new that returns the actual State object and remapped state.get() to it
• Add new method set_new that preserves existing attributes by default, but also allowes them to be updated or removed

The PR will follow soon.

[craigbarratt]

Good suggestions- it would be good to have a clean way of providing those features. This is related to issues #11 and #12.

[craigbarratt]

I just made a commit 712692f that makes state setting preserve the attributes. state.set() can optionally update or replace attributes. I also added state.get_attr() to get a dict of all attributes for a state variable.

[craigbarratt]

This is released in 0.21.

If you can suggest additional features or changes, please re-open this issue or create a new one.

[fleXible]

@craigbarratt
In my PR I also fancied the idea to have access to the full Stateobject, maybe to access any of the other available properties like last_changedor context.

And I suggested using the statesobjects from HAs template engine. Even though the way I implemented it, was quite ugly, still it lets you iterate over all states or thos from a specific domain and gives access to the full State object.
I liked it, because it works the same way as in templates, making it easier for people to adopt pyscript.

What do you think?