select.dictionary_element behavior when no output specified

[ebhills]

I realize that the global wrangles default behavior is to overwrite columns when no output is specified. However, I think select.dictionary_element against a single element should be different.

When calling it for a specific element, the wrangler clearly wants to 'extract' the info rather than write over the input dictionary. I have lost a lot of time troubleshooting why my dictionary is no longer a dict.

As is, the user is effectively forced to name it what it's already named.

[ebhills]

OK this bit me again yesterday (half an hour of frustration) so want to fix this once and for all. @thomasstvr / @mborodii-prog - here are my thoughts:

• we have to change the current behavior when no input specified. As is, writing an element into a dict (essentially deleting all other elements) is not what user expects. I think there are 2 options:

• output the elements(s) with their key names as the columns names (my choice - it is how I have always expected it to work)
• remove the ambiguity altogether by requiring the output param. But this is not only different from other wrangles, but is also verbose.

• I believe option 1 is a breaking change if it is being call without an output. I will research this to see how often this has occurred (for recipes in the database) so that we can formulate some way to avoid breaking or update these en masse.

[mborodii-prog]

@ebhills can you share example of recipe to reproduce and expected result
does that's what you expect:
single element:

multiple: