Can somenone translate this from Ruby to Python. Its a basic map function [closed]

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This function is from the mongodb site: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/MongoDB+Data+Modeling+and+Rails

def self.threaded_with_field(story, field_name='votes')
    comments = find(:all, :conditions => {:story_id => story.id}, :order => "path asc,  #{field_name} desc")
    results, map = [], {}
    comments.each do |comment|
      if comment.parent_id.blank?
        results << comment
      else
        comment.path =~ /:([\d|\w]+)$/
        if parent = $1
          map[parent] ||= []
          map[parent] << comment
        end
      end
    end
    assemble(results, map)
  end

Its just the use of array and hashes that tripped me up. Characters like ||,<<, and this string "||=[]". I understand active record and the rest of the function. Otherwise I will just read the first 60 or so pages of an into to Ruby Book, which I was not dying to do开发者_StackOverflow.

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So to answer your questions regarding operators like << or ||= []:

• << appends an element to an array (or appends strings), in the case above it's used to append the comment object to either the results array or or the threaded thingy.
• ||= basically means, if left-hand-side is undefined then evaluate & assign right-hand-side ([] is the same as Array.new) => "if map[parent] is undefined, initialize it with Array.new - else do nothing"

To method above creates an array with parent comments (results) and a hash with child comments (map).

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This method can't be translated directly. It relies on several framework methods that would exist only in an ActiveRecord or Mongoid::Document class (e.g. Model#find) -- unless you're using an identical framework in Python, you would also have to implement these methods yourself.