Python
Dictionaries
At the end of this lesson…
• Access Items
• Change Values
• Loop through a dictionary
• Check if key exists
• Dictionary Lengths
• Remove, Add, Copy
• Nested Dictionary
Dictionary
A dictionary is a collection which is unordered, changeable and
indexed. In Python dictionaries are written with curly brackets, and
they have keys and values.
• Create and print a dictionary:
Accessing Items
You can access the items of a dictionary by referring to its key name, inside
square brackets:
• Get the value of the "model" key:
Accessing Items
There is also a method called get() that will give you the same result:
Change Values
You can change the value of a specific item by referring to its key name:
• Change the "year" to 2018:
Loop Through a Dictionary
You can loop through a dictionary by using a for loop.
When looping through a dictionary, the return value are the keys of the
dictionary, but there are methods to return the values as well.
• Print all key names in the dictionary, one by one:
Example:
• Print all values in the dictionary, one by one:
Example:
• You can also use the values() method to return values of a
dictionary:
Example:
• Loop through both keys and values, by using
the items() method:
Check if Key Exists
To determine if a specified key is present in a dictionary use
the in keyword:
• Check if "model" is present in the dictionary:
Dictionary Length
To determine how many items (key-value pairs) a dictionary has,
use the len() function.
• Print the number of items in the dictionary:
Adding Items
Adding an item to the dictionary is done by using a new index key and
assigning a value to it:
Removing Items
There are several methods to remove items from a dictionary:
• The pop() method removes the item with the specified key
name:
Removing Items
• The popitem() method removes the last inserted item (in
versions before 3.7, a random item is removed instead):
Removing Items
• The del keyword removes the item with the specified key
name:
Removing Items
• The clear() method empties the dictionary:
Copy a Dictionary
You cannot copy a dictionary simply by typing dict2 =
dict1, because: dict2 will only be a reference to dict1,
and changes made in dict1 will automatically also be
made in dict2.
There are ways to make a copy, one way is to use the
built-in Dictionary method copy().
Example:
Make a copy of a dictionary with the copy() method:
Example:
Another way to make a copy is to use the built-in function dict().
Nested Dictionaries
A dictionary can also contain many dictionaries,
this is called nested dictionaries.
Create a dictionary that contain three dictionaries:
Example:
Or, if you want to nest three dictionaries that
already exists as dictionaries:
Create three dictionaries, then
create one dictionary that will
contain the other three dictionaries:
The dict() contructor
It is also possible to use the dict() constructor to make a new dictionary:
Another way to make a copy is to use the built-in function dict().
Dictionary Method
Python has a set of built-in methods that you can use on dictionaries.
THANK YOU!
