Python Dictionary

Each key is separated from its value by a colon (:), the items are separated by commas, and the whole thing is enclosed
in curly braces. An empty dictionary without any items is written with just two curly braces, like this: {}.
Keys are unique within a dictionary while values may not be. The values of a dictionary can be of any type, but the keys
must be of an immutable data type such as strings, numbers, or tuples.

Accessing Values in Dictionary

To access dictionary elements, you can use the familiar square brackets along with the key to obtain its value.
Following is a simple example.
dict = {'Name': 'Gautam', 'Age': 29, 'Class': 'First'}

print ("dict['Name']: ", dict['Name'])

print ("dict['Age']: ", dict['Age'])

When the above code is executed, it produces the following result-

dict['Name']: Gautam

dict['Age']: 29

If we attempt to access a data item with a key, which is not a part of the dictionary, we get an error as follows-
 dict = {'Name': 'Gautam', 'Age': 29, 'Class': 'First'};

print "dict['Contact']: ", dict['Contact']

When the above code is executed, it produces the following result-

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "test.py", line 4, in <module>
print "dict['Contact']: ", dict['Contact'];
KeyError: 'Alice'
Updating Dictionary
You can update a dictionary by adding a new entry or a key-value pair, modifying an existing entry, or deleting an
existing entry as shown in a simple example given below.

dict = {'Name': 'Gautam', 'Age': 29, 'Class': 'First'}

dict['Age'] = 28; # update existing entry
dict['School'] = "SVM Mansurpur" # Add new entry
print ("dict['Age']: ", dict['Age'])
print ("dict['School']: ", dict['School'])
print ("dict : ", dict)

When the above code is executed, it produces the following result-

dict['Age']: 28

dict['School']: SVM Mansurpur

dict : {'Name': 'Gautam', 'Age': 29, 'Class':'First', 'School':'SVM Mansurpur '}
Delete Dictionary Elements
You can either remove individual dictionary elements or clear the entire contents of a dictionary. You can also delete
entire dictionary in a single operation.
To explicitly remove an entire dictionary, just use the del statement. Following is a simple example-
#!/usr/bin/python3

dct = {'Name': 'Gautam', 'Age': 29, 'Class':’first’}

'First'}

del dict['Name'] # remove entry with key 'Name'

dict.clear() # remove all entries in dict
del dict # delete entire dictionary

print ("dict['Age']: ", dict['Age'])

print ("dict['School']: ", dict['School'])

This produces the following result.

Note: An exception is raised because after del dict, the dictionary does not exist anymore.
dict['Age']:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "test.py", line 8, in <module>

print ("dict['school']: ", dict['school']);

TypeError: 'type' object is unsubscriptable

Note: The del() method is discussed in subsequent section.

Properties of Dictionary Keys
Dictionary values have no restrictions. They can be any arbitrary Python object, either standard objects or user-defined
objects. However, same is not true for the keys.
There are two important points to remember about dictionary keys-
(a) More than one entry per key is not allowed. This means no duplicate key is allowed. When duplicate keys are
encountered during assignment, the last assignment wins. For example-
#!/usr/bin/python3

dict = {'Name': 'Gautam', 'Age': 29, 'Name': 'Dharamraj'}

print ("dict['Name']: ", dict['Name'])

When the above code is executed, it produces the following result-

dict['Name']: Dharamraj

(b) Keys must be immutable. This means you can use strings, numbers or tuples as dictionary keys but something like
['key'] is not allowed. Following is a simple example-
 dict = {['Name']: 'Gautam', 'Age': 29}

print ("dict['Name']: ", dict['Name'])

When the above code is executed, it produces the following result-

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "test.py", line 3, in <module>
dict = {['Name']: 'Gautam', 'Age': 29}
TypeError: list objects are unhashable
Built-in Dictionary Functions & Methods
Python includes the following dictionary functions-

SN Functions with Description

1 cmp(dict1, dict2)
No longer available in Python 3.
2 len(dict)
Gives the total length of the dictionary. This would be equal to the number of items in the dictionary.

3 str(dict)
Produces a printable string representation of a dictionary.
4 type(variable)
Returns the type of the passed variable. If passed variable is dictionary, then it would return a dictionary type.
Dictionary len()Method

Description: The method len() gives the total length of the dictionary. This would be equal to the number of items in
the dictionary.

Syntax : Following is the syntax for len() method-

len(dict)

Parameters
dict - This is the dictionary, whose length needs to be calculated.

Return Value : This method returns the length.

Example
The following example shows the usage of len() method.
dict = {'Name': 'Manni', 'Age': 7, 'Class': 'First'}
print ("Length : %d" % len (dict))

When we run the above program, it produces the following result-

Length : 3
Dictionary str() Method

Description: The method str() produces a printable string representation of a dictionary.

Syntax: Following is the syntax for str() method −
str(dict)

Parameters
dict - This is the dictionary.

Return Value: This method returns string representation.

Example
The following example shows the usage of str() method.
dict = {'Name': 'Manni', 'Age': 27, 'Class': 'First'}

print ("Equivalent String : %s" % str (dict))

When we run the above program, it produces the following result-

Equivalent String : {'Name': 'Manni', 'Age': 7, 'Class': 'First'}
Dictionary type() Method

Description : The method type() returns the type of the passed variable. If passed variable is dictionary then it would
return a dictionary type.
Syntax: Following is the syntax for type() method-
type(dict)

Parameters:
dict - This is the dictionary.

Return Value: This method returns the type of the passed variable.

Example
The following example shows the usage of type() method.
dict = {'Name': 'Manni', 'Age': 27, 'Class': 'First'}

print ("Variable Type : %s" % type (dict))

When we run the above program, it produces the following result-

Variable Type : <type 'dict'>
Python includes the following dictionary methods-

SN Methods with Description

1 dict.clear() - Removes all elements of dictionary dict.

2 dict.copy() - Returns a shallow copy of dictionary dict.
3 dict.fromkeys() - Create a new dictionary with keys from seq and values set to value.
4 dict.get(key, default=None) - For key key, returns value or default if key not in dictionary.
5 dict.has_key(key) - Removed, use the in operation instead.
6 dict.items() - Returns a list of dict's (key, value) tuple pairs.
7 dict.keys() - Returns list of dictionary dict's keys.
8 dict.setdefault(key, default=None) - Similar to get(), but will set dict[key]=default if key is not already in dict.
9 dict.update(dict2) - Adds dictionary dict2's key-values pairs to dict.
10 dict.values() - Returns list of dictionary dict's values.
Dictionary clear() Method

Description: The method clear() removes all items from the dictionary.

Syntax: Following is the syntax for clear() method-

dict.clear()

Parameters:
NA

Return Value: This method does not return any value.

Example
The following example shows the usage of clear() method.
dict = {'Name': 'Dharamraj', 'Age':28}

print ("Start Len : %d" % len(dict))

dict.clear()
print ("End Len : %d" % len(dict))

When we run the above program, it produces the following result-

Start Len : 2
End Len : 0
Dictionary copy() Method

Description: The method copy() returns a shallow copy of the dictionary.

Syntax:Following is the syntax for copy() method-
dict.copy()

Parameters
NA
Return Value
This method returns a shallow copy of the dictionary.
Example
The following example shows the usage of copy() method.
#!/usr/bin/python3
dict1 = {'Name': 'Manni', 'Age': 7, 'Class': 'First'}
dict2 = dict1.copy()
print ("New Dictionary : ",dict2)

When we run the above program, it produces following result-

New dictionary : {'Name': 'Manni', 'Age': 7, 'Class': 'First'}
 Dictionary fromkeys() Method

Description
The method fromkeys() creates a new dictionary with keys from seq and values set to value.

Syntax
Following is the syntax for fromkeys() method-
dict.fromkeys(seq[, value]))

Parameters
 seq - This is the list of values which would be used for dictionary keys preparation.

 value - This is optional, if provided then value would be set to this value

Return Value
This method returns the list.
Example
The following example shows the usage of fromkeys() method.
#!/usr/bin/python3
seq = ('name', 'age', 'Gender')
dict = dict.fromkeys(seq)
print ("New Dictionary : %s" % str(dict))
dict = dict.fromkeys(seq, 10)
print ("New Dictionary : %s" % str(dict))

When we run the above program, it produces the following result-

New Dictionary : {'age': None, 'name': None, 'Gender': None}

New Dictionary : {'age': 10, 'name': 10, 'Gender': 10}

 Dictionary get() Method

Description: The method get() returns a value for the given key. If the key is not available then returns default value
None.
Syntax : Following is the syntax for get() method-
dict.get(key, default=None)

Parameters
 key - This is the Key to be searched in the dictionary.

 default - This is the Value to be returned in case key does not exist.

Return Value : This method returns a value for the given key. If the key is not available, then returns default value as
None.

Example: The following example shows the usage of get() method.

#!/usr/bin/python3
dict = {'Name': 'Zara', 'Age': 27}
print ("Value : %s" % dict.get('Age'))
print ("Value : %s" % dict.get('Sex', "NA"))

When we run the above program, it produces the following result-

Value : 27
Value : NA
Dictionary items() Method

Description
The method items() returns a list of dict's (key, value) tuple pairs.
Syntax : Following is the syntax for items() method-
dict.items()

Parameters
NA

Return Value :This method returns a list of tuple pairs.

Example
The following example shows the usage of items() method.
#!/usr/bin/python
dict = {'Name': 'Zara', 'Age': 7}
print ("Value : %s" % dict.items())

When we run the above program, it produces the following result-

Value : [('Age', 7), ('Name', 'Zara')]
Dictionary keys() Method

Description
The method keys() returns a list of all the available keys in the dictionary.

Syntax
Following is the syntax for keys() method-
dict.keys()

Parameters
NA

Return Value : This method returns a list of all the available keys in the dictionary.

Example
The following example shows the usage of keys() method.
#!/usr/bin/python3
dict = {'Name': 'Zara', 'Age': 7}
print ("Value : %s" % dict.keys())

When we run the above program, it produces the following result-

Value : ['Age', 'Name']
 Dictionary setdefault() Method

Description: The method setdefault() is similar to get(), but will set dict[key]=default if the key is not already in dict.

Syntax :Following is the syntax for setdefault() method-

dict.setdefault(key, default=None)

Parameters
 key - This is the key to be searched.

 default - This is the Value to be returned in case key is not found.

Return Value
This method returns the key value available in the dictionary and if given key is not available then it will return
provided default value.
Example
The following example shows the usage of setdefault() method.
#!/usr/bin/python3
dict = {'Name': 'Zara', 'Age': 7}
print ("Value : %s" % dict.setdefault('Age', None))
print ("Value : %s" % dict.setdefault('Gender',
None)) print (dict)

When we run the above program, it produces the following result-

Value : 7
Value : None
{'Name': 'Zara', 'Gender': None, 'Age': 7}
Dictionary update() Method

Description :The method update() adds dictionary dict2's key-values pairs in to dict. This function does not return
anything.

Syntax : Following is the syntax for update() method-

dict.update(dict2)

Parameters
dict2 - This is the dictionary to be added into dict.

Return Value :This method does not return any value.

Example:The following example shows the usage of update() method.

#!/usr/bin/python3
dict = {'Name': 'Zara', 'Age': 7}
dict2 = {Gender: 'female' }
dict.update(dict2)
print ("updated dict : ", dict)

When we run the above program, it produces the following result-

updated dict : {'Gender': 'female', 'Age': 7, 'Name': 'Zara'}
Dictionaryvalues()Method

Description :The method values() returns a list of all the values available in a given dictionary.

Syntax :Following is the syntax for values() method-

dict.values()

Parameters
NA

Return Value :This method returns a list of all the values available in a given dictionary.

Example :The following example shows the usage of values() method.

#!/usr/bin/python3
dict = {'Gender': 'female', 'Age': 7, 'Name': 'Zara'}

print ("Values : ", list(dict.values()))

When we run above program, it produces following result-

Values : ['female', 7, 'Zara']