Dictionaries in Python

Table of Contents

 Defining a Dictionary
 Accessing Dictionary Values
 Dictionary Keys vs. List Indices
 Building a Dictionary Incrementally
 Restrictions on Dictionary Keys
 Restrictions on Dictionary Values
 Operators and Built-in Functions
 Built-in Dictionary Methods
 Conclusion

Python provides another composite data type called a dictionary, which is

similar to a list in that it is a collection of objects.

Dictionaries and lists share the following characteristics:

 Both are mutable.

 Both are dynamic. They can grow and shrink as needed.
 Both can be nested. A list can contain another list. A dictionary can
contain another dictionary. A dictionary can also contain a list, and vice
versa.

Dictionaries differ from lists primarily in how elements are accessed:

 List elements are accessed by their position in the list, via indexing.
 Dictionary elements are accessed via keys.

Defining a Dictionary
Dictionaries are Python’s implementation of a data structure that is more
generally known as an associative array. A dictionary consists of a collection of
key-value pairs. Each key-value pair maps the key to its associated value.

You can define a dictionary by enclosing a comma-separated list of key-value

pairs in curly braces ({}). A colon (:) separates each key from its associated
value:

d = {
<key>: <value>,
<key>: <value>,
.
.
.
<key>: <value>
}
The following defines a dictionary that maps a location to the name of its
corresponding Major League Baseball team:

>>>
>>> MLB_team = {
... 'Colorado' : 'Rockies',
... 'Boston' : 'Red Sox',
... 'Minnesota': 'Twins',
... 'Milwaukee': 'Brewers',
... 'Seattle' : 'Mariners'
... }
Dictionary Mapping Location to MLB Team
You can also construct a dictionary with the built-in dict() function. The
argument to dict()should be a sequence of key-value pairs. A list of tuples
works well for this:

d = dict([
(<key>, <value>),
(<key>, <value),
.
.
.
(<key>, <value>)
])
MLB_team can then also be defined this way:

>>>
>>> MLB_team = dict([
... ('Colorado', 'Rockies'),
... ('Boston', 'Red Sox'),
... ('Minnesota', 'Twins'),
... ('Milwaukee', 'Brewers'),
... ('Seattle', 'Mariners')
... ])
If the key values are simple strings, they can be specified as keyword
arguments. So here is yet another way to define MLB_team:

>>>
>>> MLB_team = dict(
... Colorado='Rockies',
... Boston='Red Sox',
... Minnesota='Twins',
... Milwaukee='Brewers',
... Seattle='Mariners'
... )
Once you’ve defined a dictionary, you can display its contents, the same as
you can do for a list. All three of the definitions shown above appear as
follows when displayed:

>>>
>>> type(MLB_team)
<class 'dict'>

>>> MLB_team
{'Colorado': 'Rockies', 'Boston': 'Red Sox', 'Minnesota': 'Twins',
'Milwaukee': 'Brewers', 'Seattle': 'Mariners'}
The entries in the dictionary display in the order they were defined. But that is
irrelevant when it comes to retrieving them. Dictionary elements are not
accessed by numerical index:

>>>
>>> MLB_team[1]
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#13>", line 1, in <module>
MLB_team[1]
KeyError: 1

Accessing Dictionary Values

Of course, dictionary elements must be accessible somehow. If you don’t get
them by index, then how do you get them?

A value is retrieved from a dictionary by specifying its corresponding key in

square brackets ([]):

>>>
>>> MLB_team['Minnesota']
'Twins'
>>> MLB_team['Colorado']
'Rockies'
If you refer to a key that is not in the dictionary, Python raises an exception:

>>>
>>> MLB_team['Toronto']
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#19>", line 1, in <module>
MLB_team['Toronto']
KeyError: 'Toronto'
Adding an entry to an existing dictionary is simply a matter of assigning a new
key and value:

>>>
>>> MLB_team['Kansas City'] = 'Royals'
>>> MLB_team
{'Colorado': 'Rockies', 'Boston': 'Red Sox', 'Minnesota': 'Twins',
'Milwaukee': 'Brewers', 'Seattle': 'Mariners', 'Kansas City': 'Royals'}
If you want to update an entry, you can just assign a new value to an existing
key:

>>>
>>> MLB_team['Seattle'] = 'Seahawks'
>>> MLB_team
{'Colorado': 'Rockies', 'Boston': 'Red Sox', 'Minnesota': 'Twins',
'Milwaukee': 'Brewers', 'Seattle': 'Seahawks', 'Kansas City': 'Royals'}
To delete an entry, use the del statement, specifying the key to delete:
>>>
>>> del MLB_team['Seattle']
>>> MLB_team
{'Colorado': 'Rockies', 'Boston': 'Red Sox', 'Minnesota': 'Twins',
'Milwaukee': 'Brewers', 'Kansas City': 'Royals'}
Begone, Seahawks! Thou art an NFL team.

Dictionary Keys vs. List Indices

You may have noticed that the interpreter raises the same exception, KeyError,
when a dictionary is accessed with either an undefined key or by a numeric
index:

>>>
>>> MLB_team['Toronto']
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#8>", line 1, in <module>
MLB_team['Toronto']
KeyError: 'Toronto'

>>> MLB_team[1]
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#9>", line 1, in <module>
MLB_team[1]
KeyError: 1
In fact, it’s the same error. In the latter case, [1] looks like a numerical index,
but it isn’t.

You will see later in this tutorial that an object of any immutable type can be
used as a dictionary key. Accordingly, there is no reason you can’t use
integers:

>>>
>>> d = {0: 'a', 1: 'b', 2: 'c', 3: 'd'}
>>> d
{0: 'a', 1: 'b', 2: 'c', 3: 'd'}
>>> d[0]
'a'
>>> d[2]
'c'
In the expressions MLB_team[1], d[0], and d[2], the numbers in square brackets
appear as though they might be indices. But they have nothing to do with the
order of the items in the dictionary. Python is interpreting them as dictionary
keys. If you define this same dictionary in reverse order, you still get the same
values using the same keys:

>>>
>>> d = {3: 'd', 2: 'c', 1: 'b', 0: 'a'}
>>> d
{3: 'd', 2: 'c', 1: 'b', 0: 'a'}

>>> d[0]
'a'
>>> d[2]
'c'
The syntax may look similar, but you can’t treat a dictionary like a list:

>>>
>>> type(d)
<class 'dict'>

>>> d[-1]
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#30>", line 1, in <module>
d[-1]
KeyError: -1

>>> d[0:2]
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#31>", line 1, in <module>
d[0:2]
TypeError: unhashable type: 'slice'

>>> d.append('e')
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#32>", line 1, in <module>
d.append('e')
AttributeError: 'dict' object has no attribute 'append'
Note: Although access to items in a dictionary does not depend on order,
Python does guarantee that the order of items in a dictionary is preserved.
When displayed, items will appear in the order they were defined, and
iteration through the keys will occur in that order as well. Items added to a
dictionary are added at the end. If items are deleted, the order of the
remaining items is retained.

You can only count on this preservation of order very recently. It was added as
a part of the Python language specification in version 3.7. However, it was true
as of version 3.6 as well—by happenstance as a result of the implementation
but not guaranteed by the language specification.

Building a Dictionary Incrementally

Defining a dictionary using curly braces and a list of key-value pairs, as shown
above, is fine if you know all the keys and values in advance. But what if you
want to build a dictionary on the fly?

You can start by creating an empty dictionary, which is specified by empty

curly braces. Then you can add new keys and values one at a time:

>>>
>>> person = {}
>>> type(person)
<class 'dict'>

>>> person['fname'] = 'Joe'

>>> person['lname'] = 'Fonebone'
>>> person['age'] = 51
>>> person['spouse'] = 'Edna'
>>> person['children'] = ['Ralph', 'Betty', 'Joey']
>>> person['pets'] = {'dog': 'Fido', 'cat': 'Sox'}
Once the dictionary is created in this way, its values are accessed the same
way as any other dictionary:

>>>
>>> person
{'fname': 'Joe', 'lname': 'Fonebone', 'age': 51, 'spouse': 'Edna',
'children': ['Ralph', 'Betty', 'Joey'], 'pets': {'dog': 'Fido', 'cat':
'Sox'}}

>>> person['fname']
'Joe'
>>> person['age']
51
>>> person['children']
['Ralph', 'Betty', 'Joey']
Retrieving the values in the sublist or subdictionary requires an additional
index or key:

>>>
>>> person['children'][-1]
'Joey'
>>> person['pets']['cat']
'Sox'
This example exhibits another feature of dictionaries: the values contained in
the dictionary don’t need to be the same type. In person, some of the values
are strings, one is an integer, one is a list, and one is another dictionary.

Just as the values in a dictionary don’t need to be of the same type, the keys
don’t either:

>>>
>>> foo = {42: 'aaa', 2.78: 'bbb', True: 'ccc'}
>>> foo
{42: 'aaa', 2.78: 'bbb', True: 'ccc'}

>>> foo[42]
'aaa'
>>> foo[2.78]
'bbb'
>>> foo[True]
'ccc'
Here, one of the keys is an integer, one is a float, and one is a Boolean. It’s not
obvious how this would be useful, but you never know.

Notice how versatile Python dictionaries are. In MLB_team, the same piece of
information (the baseball team name) is kept for each of several different
geographical locations. person, on the other hand, stores varying types of data
for a single person.

You can use dictionaries for a wide range of purposes because there are so
few limitations on the keys and values that are allowed. But there are some.
Read on!

Restrictions on Dictionary Keys

Almost any type of value can be used as a dictionary key in Python. You just
saw this example, where integer, float, and Boolean objects are used as keys:

>>>
>>> foo = {42: 'aaa', 2.78: 'bbb', True: 'ccc'}
>>> foo
{42: 'aaa', 2.78: 'bbb', True: 'ccc'}
You can even use built-in objects like types and functions:

>>>
>>> d = {int: 1, float: 2, bool: 3}
>>> d
{<class 'int'>: 1, <class 'float'>: 2, <class 'bool'>: 3}
>>> d[float]
2
>>> d = {bin: 1, hex: 2, oct: 3}
>>> d[oct]
3
However, there are a couple restrictions that dictionary keys must abide by.

First, a given key can appear in a dictionary only once. Duplicate keys are not
allowed. A dictionary maps each key to a corresponding value, so it doesn’t
make sense to map a particular key more than once.

You saw above that when you assign a value to an already existing dictionary
key, it does not add the key a second time, but replaces the existing value:

>>>
>>> MLB_team = {
... 'Colorado' : 'Rockies',
... 'Boston' : 'Red Sox',
... 'Minnesota': 'Twins',
... 'Milwaukee': 'Brewers',
... 'Seattle' : 'Mariners'
... }

>>> MLB_team['Minnesota'] = 'Timberwolves'

>>> MLB_team
{'Colorado': 'Rockies', 'Boston': 'Red Sox', 'Minnesota': 'Timberwolves',
'Milwaukee': 'Brewers', 'Seattle': 'Mariners'}
Similarly, if you specify a key a second time during the initial creation of a
dictionary, the second occurrence will override the first:

>>>
>>> MLB_team = {
... 'Colorado' : 'Rockies',
... 'Boston' : 'Red Sox',
... 'Minnesota': 'Timberwolves',
... 'Milwaukee': 'Brewers',
... 'Seattle' : 'Mariners',
... 'Minnesota': 'Twins'
... }
>>> MLB_team
{'Colorado': 'Rockies', 'Boston': 'Red Sox', 'Minnesota': 'Twins',
'Milwaukee': 'Brewers', 'Seattle': 'Mariners'}
Begone, Timberwolves! Thou art an NBA team. Sort of.

Secondly, a dictionary key must be of a type that is immutable. You have

already seen examples where several of the immutable types you are familiar
with—integer, float, string, and Boolean—have served as dictionary keys.

A tuple can also be a dictionary key, because tuples are immutable:

>>>
>>> d = {(1, 1): 'a', (1, 2): 'b', (2, 1): 'c', (2, 2): 'd'}
>>> d[(1,1)]
'a'
>>> d[(2,1)]
'c'
(Recall from the discussion on tuples that one rationale for using a tuple
instead of a list is that there are circumstances where an immutable type is
required. This is one of them.)

However, neither a list nor another dictionary can serve as a dictionary key,
because lists and dictionaries are mutable:

>>>
>>> d = {[1, 1]: 'a', [1, 2]: 'b', [2, 1]: 'c', [2, 2]: 'd'}
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#20>", line 1, in <module>
d = {[1, 1]: 'a', [1, 2]: 'b', [2, 1]: 'c', [2, 2]: 'd'}
TypeError: unhashable type: 'list'
Technical Note: Why does the error message say “unhashable”?

Technically, it is not quite correct to say an object must be immutable to be

used as a dictionary key. More precisely, an object must be hashable, which
means it can be passed to a hash function. A hash function takes data of
arbitrary size and maps it to a relatively simpler fixed-size value called a hash
value (or simply hash), which is used for table lookup and comparison.

Python’s built-in hash() function returns the hash value for an object which is

hashable, and raises an exception for an object which isn’t:

>>>
>>> hash('foo')
11132615637596761

>>> hash([1, 2, 3])

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: unhashable type: 'list'
All of the built-in immutable types you have learned about so far are hashable,
and the mutable container types (lists and dictionaries) are not. So for present
purposes, you can think of hashable and immutable as more or less
synonymous.

In future tutorials, you will encounter mutable objects which are also hashable.

Restrictions on Dictionary Values

By contrast, there are no restrictions on dictionary values. Literally none at all.
A dictionary value can be any type of object Python supports, including
mutable types like lists and dictionaries, and user-defined objects, which you
will learn about in upcoming tutorials.

There is also no restriction against a particular value appearing in a dictionary

multiple times:

>>>
>>> d = {0: 'a', 1: 'a', 2: 'a', 3: 'a'}
>>> d
{0: 'a', 1: 'a', 2: 'a', 3: 'a'}
>>> d[0] == d[1] == d[2]
True
Operators and Built-in Functions
You have already become familiar with many of the operators and built-in
functions that can be used with strings, lists, and tuples. Some of these work
with dictionaries as well.

For example, the in and not in operators return True or False according to

whether the specified operand occurs as a key in the dictionary:

>>>
>>> MLB_team = {
... 'Colorado' : 'Rockies',
... 'Boston' : 'Red Sox',
... 'Minnesota': 'Twins',
... 'Milwaukee': 'Brewers',
... 'Seattle' : 'Mariners'
... }

>>> 'Milwaukee' in MLB_team

True
>>> 'Toronto' in MLB_team
False
>>> 'Toronto' not in MLB_team
True
You can use the in operator together with short-circuit evaluation to avoid
raising an error when trying to access a key that is not in the dictionary:

>>>
>>> MLB_team['Toronto']
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#2>", line 1, in <module>
MLB_team['Toronto']
KeyError: 'Toronto'

>>> 'Toronto' in MLB_team and MLB_team['Toronto']

False
In the second case, due to short-circuit evaluation, the
expression MLB_team['Toronto'] is not evaluated, so the KeyError exception
does not occur.

The len() function returns the number of key-value pairs in a dictionary:

>>>
>>> MLB_team = {
... 'Colorado' : 'Rockies',
... 'Boston' : 'Red Sox',
... 'Minnesota': 'Twins',
... 'Milwaukee': 'Brewers',
... 'Seattle' : 'Mariners'
... }
>>> len(MLB_team)
5

Built-in Dictionary Methods

As with strings and lists, there are several built-in methods that can be invoked
on dictionaries. In fact, in some cases, the list and dictionary methods share
the same name. (In the discussion on object-oriented programming, you will
see that it is perfectly acceptable for different types to have methods with the
same name.)

The following is an overview of methods that apply to dictionaries:

d.clear()

Clears a dictionary.
d.clear() empties dictionary d of all key-value pairs:

>>>
>>> d = {'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}
>>> d
{'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}
>>> d.clear()
>>> d
{}

d.get(<key>[, <default>])

Returns the value for a key if it exists in the dictionary.

The .get() method provides a convenient way of getting the value of a key
from a dictionary without checking ahead of time whether the key exists, and
without raising an error.

d.get(<key>) searches dictionary d for <key> and returns the associated value if

it is found. If <key> is not found, it returns None:

>>>
>>> d = {'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}

>>> print(d.get('b'))
20
>>> print(d.get('z'))
None
If <key> is not found and the optional <default> argument is specified, that
value is returned instead of None:

>>>
>>> print(d.get('z', -1))
-1

d.items()

Returns a list of key-value pairs in a dictionary.

d.items() returns a list of tuples containing the key-value pairs in d. The first
item in each tuple is the key, and the second item is the key’s value:

>>>
>>> d = {'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}
>>> d
{'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}

>>> list(d.items())
[('a', 10), ('b', 20), ('c', 30)]
>>> list(d.items())[1][0]
'b'
>>> list(d.items())[1][1]
20

d.keys()

Returns a list of keys in a dictionary.

d.keys() returns a list of all keys in d:

>>>
>>> d = {'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}
>>> d
{'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}

>>> list(d.keys())
['a', 'b', 'c']

d.values()

Returns a list of values in a dictionary.

d.values() returns a list of all values in d:

>>>
>>> d = {'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}
>>> d
{'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}

>>> list(d.values())
[10, 20, 30]
Any duplicate values in d will be returned as many times as they occur:

>>>
>>> d = {'a': 10, 'b': 10, 'c': 10}
>>> d
{'a': 10, 'b': 10, 'c': 10}

>>> list(d.values())
[10, 10, 10]
Technical Note: The .items(), .keys(), and .values() methods actually return
something called a view object. A dictionary view object is more or less like a
window on the keys and values. For practical purposes, you can think of these
methods as returning lists of the dictionary’s keys and values.

d.pop(<key>[, <default>])

Removes a key from a dictionary, if it is present, and returns its value.

If <key> is present in d, d.pop(<key>) removes <key> and returns its associated
value:

>>>
>>> d = {'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}

>>> d.pop('b')
20
>>> d
{'a': 10, 'c': 30}
d.pop(<key>) raises a KeyError exception if <key> is not in d:

>>>
>>> d = {'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}

>>> d.pop('z')
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#4>", line 1, in <module>
d.pop('z')
KeyError: 'z'
If <key> is not in d, and the optional <default> argument is specified, then that
value is returned, and no exception is raised:
>>>
>>> d = {'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}
>>> d.pop('z', -1)
-1
>>> d
{'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}

d.popitem()

Removes a key-value pair from a dictionary.

d.popitem() removes a random, arbitrary key-value pair from d and returns it as
a tuple:

>>>
>>> d = {'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}

>>> d.popitem()
('c', 30)
>>> d
{'a': 10, 'b': 20}

>>> d.popitem()
('b', 20)
>>> d
{'a': 10}
If d is empty, d.popitem() raises a KeyError exception:

>>>
>>> d = {}
>>> d.popitem()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#11>", line 1, in <module>
d.popitem()
KeyError: 'popitem(): dictionary is empty'

d.update(<obj>)
Merges a dictionary with another dictionary or with an iterable of key-value
pairs.
If <obj> is a dictionary, d.update(<obj>) merges the entries from <obj> into d.
For each key in <obj>:

 If the key is not present in d, the key-value pair from <obj> is added to d.
 If the key is already present in d, the corresponding value in d for that
key is updated to the value from <obj>.

Here is an example showing two dictionaries merged together:

>>>
>>> d1 = {'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}
>>> d2 = {'b': 200, 'd': 400}

>>> d1.update(d2)
>>> d1
{'a': 10, 'b': 200, 'c': 30, 'd': 400}
In this example, key 'b' already exists in d1, so its value is updated to 200, the
value for that key from d2. However, there is no key 'd' in d1, so that key-value
pair is added from d2.

<obj> may also be a sequence of key-value pairs, similar to when

the dict() function is used to define a dictionary. For example, <obj> can be
specified as a list of tuples:

>>>
>>> d1 = {'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}
>>> d1.update([('b', 200), ('d', 400)])
>>> d1
{'a': 10, 'b': 200, 'c': 30, 'd': 400}
Or the values to merge can be specified as a list of keyword arguments:

>>>
>>> d1 = {'a': 10, 'b': 20, 'c': 30}
>>> d1.update(b=200, d=400)
>>> d1
{'a': 10, 'b': 200, 'c': 30, 'd': 400}

Conclusion
In this tutorial, you covered the basic properties of the Python dictionary and
learned how to access and manipulate dictionary data.

Lists and dictionaries are two of the most frequently used Python types. As

you have seen, they have several similarities, but differ in how their elements
are accessed. Lists elements are accessed by numerical index based on order,
and dictionary elements are accessed by key

Because of this difference, lists and dictionaries tend to be appropriate for

different circumstances. You should now have a good feel for which, if either,
would be best for a given situation.

Next you will learn about Python sets. The set is another composite data type,
but it is quite different from either a list or dictionary.