[web2py] Standalone DAL Usiage - Insert from a Dictionary (vs bulk_insert)

[BrendanC]

I'm testing standalone DAL usage - basically using the DAL to help 
move/convert some tables from an external db.

Basically I'm trying to populate a dictionary with a subset of data from an 
external database and then insert a series of data records into a new 
table. 

I expected to be able to populate a dictionary with a subset of the 
selected fields but it appears that the db.insert method will not accept a 
dictionary  ( I get the error 'insert() takes exactly 1 argument (2 given').

I was able to get this to work using the bulk_insert method instead, but 
this is not very intuitive.  (See the code below for a specific example)
Is there a reason why the DAL insert method should/could not provide 
dictionary support (I checked the docs and this is not really covered in 
any detail). 

>>>> Code Sample <<<<
 
Something like this:

# Source db = sdb() 
sdb = DAL("postgres://postgres:@localhost:5432/testdb")

sdb.define_table('mytbl',
    Field('id', type='integer'),
    Field('fname', type='string', length=10),
    Field('lname', type='string', length=10),

# Target db = ddb()
ddb = DAL("sqlite://test.db")
ddb.define_table('mytbl',
    Field('id', type='integer'),
    Field('fname', type='string', length=10),
    Field('lname', type='string', length=10),

def  populate_table():
  for row in sdb().select(sdb.mytbl.ALL):
    # build a dict for tbl insert
    for fldname in sdb().mytbl.fields:
        ddict[fldname] = row[fldname]
  # commit changes
    try:
        #ddb.mytbl.insert(ddict)           # <--- error - insert() takes 
exactly 1 argument (2 given)
        ddb.mytbl.bulk_insert([ddict])    # <--- works
        ddb.commit()
    except:
        ddb.rollback()