Dictionaries

November 24, 2023

1 Dictionaries
Dictionaries are unordered set of key value pairs separated by commas. Unlike Lists (which are
sequence based) dictionary elements are not indexed but can be retrieved using the keys.

1.0.1 Creating Dictionaries

[31]: # Starting with Empty Dictionary

dict1 = {}
dict1['id'] = 1
dict1['name'] = 'Hello'
dict1

[31]: {'id': 1, 'name': 'Hello'}

[32]: # Direct Method

dict2 = {'id':2,'name':'John'}
dict2

[32]: {'id': 2, 'name': 'John'}

[29]: # Using List of Tuples

dict3 = dict([('id',1),('name','Donald')])
dict3

[29]: {'id': 1, 'name': 'Donald'}

[30]: # Using Key-Value arguments

dict4 = dict(id=1,name='Tim')
dict4

[30]: {'id': 1, 'name': 'Tim'}

1
 1.0.2 Adding, Editing, Removing Elements

[10]: # adding a key/value pair

dict4['salary'] = 71500.75
dict4

[10]: {'id': 1, 'name': 'Tim', 'salary': 71500.75}

[11]: # removing a key

del dict4['salary']
dict4

[11]: {'id': 1, 'name': 'Tim'}

[12]: # updating a key

dict4['name'] = 'Tim Billy'
dict4

[12]: {'id': 1, 'name': 'Tim Billy'}

[54]: # count the number of elements

len(dict4)

[54]: 2

1.0.3 Checking for Keys

[13]: # Check if salary key exists

if 'salary' in dict4:
print(dict4['salary'])
else:
print(0)

[36]: # Better way of checking

print(dict4.get('name'))
print(dict4.get('salary')) # returns None if key is not present

Tim
None

1.0.4 Looping Techniques

[18]: # Default Method

for key in dict4:
print(dict4[key])

2
 1
Tim Billy

[19]: # Using Keys Method

for key in dict4.keys():
print(dict4[key])

1
Tim Billy

[20]: # Using Values Method

for value in dict4.values():
print(value)

1
Tim Billy

[21]: # Using Items Method

for k,v in dict4.items():
print('{}:{}'.format(k,v))

id:1
name:Tim Billy

1.0.5 Dictionary Comprehensions

[22]: {x: x**2 for x in range(10)}

[22]: {0: 0, 1: 1, 2: 4, 3: 9, 4: 16, 5: 25, 6: 36, 7: 49, 8: 64, 9: 81}

1.0.6 Dictionary Methods

[44]: # copy
dict5 = dict4.copy()
dict5['name']='Billy John'
print(dict4)
print(dict5)

{'id': 1, 'name': 'Tim'}

{'id': 1, 'name': 'Billy John'}

[42]: # merge 2 dictionaries

knowledge = {"Frank": {"Perl"}, "Monica":{"C","C++"}}
knowledge2 = {"Guido":{"Python"}, "Frank":{"Perl", "Python"}}
knowledge.update(knowledge2)
knowledge

[42]: {'Frank': {'Perl', 'Python'}, 'Guido': {'Python'}, 'Monica': {'C', 'C++'}}

3
[41]: # remove all elements from the dictionary

print(dict1)
dict1.clear()
print(dict1) # pls note dictionary is not deleted but only emptied

{'id': 1, 'name': 'Hello'}

{}

1.0.7 Lists to Dictionaries

[51]: countries = ['United States','England','France','India']
capitals = ['Washington','London','Paris','New Delhi']
country_capital_zip = zip(countries,capitals) # returns list iterator
print(dict(country_capital_zip))
country_capitals = list(zip(countries,capitals))
print(country_capitals)
print(dict(country_capitals))

{'United States': 'Washington', 'England': 'London', 'France': 'Paris', 'India':

'New Delhi'}
[('United States', 'Washington'), ('England', 'London'), ('France', 'Paris'),
('India', 'New Delhi')]
{'United States': 'Washington', 'England': 'London', 'France': 'Paris', 'India':
'New Delhi'}

[52]: # combined to single step

country_specialities_dict = dict(list(zip(["pizza", "sauerkraut", "paella",␣
↪"hamburger"], ["Italy", "Germany", "Spain", "USA"," Switzerland"])))

print(country_specialities_dict)

{'pizza': 'Italy', 'sauerkraut': 'Germany', 'paella': 'Spain', 'hamburger':

'USA'}

1.0.8 Dictionary with other Data Types

[4]: dict6 = {'name':'Alex','favorite_colors':['Blue','Red'],'contacts':{'email':

↪'alex@example.com','phone':'123-456-7890'},'nick_names':('Alexie','A-man')}

dict6
print(dict6['favorite_colors'])
print(dict6['contacts']['email'])
print(dict6['nick_names'])

['Blue', 'Red']
alex@example.com
('Alexie', 'A-man')