Starting out with Python

Fifth Edition

Chapter 9
Dictionaries and Sets

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Topics
• Dictionaries
• Sets
• Serializing Objects

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Dictionaries
• Dictionary: object that stores a collection of data
– Each element consists of a key and a value
 Often referred to as mapping of key to value
 Key must be an immutable object
– To retrieve a specific value, use the key associated
with it
– Format for creating a dictionary
dictionary =
{key1:val1, key2:val2}

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Retrieving a Value from a Dictionary
• Elements in dictionary are unsorted
• General format for retrieving value from dictionary:
dictionary[key]
– If key in the dictionary, associated value is returned,
otherwise, KeyError exception is raised
• Test whether a key is in a dictionary using the in and
not in operators
– Helps prevent KeyError exceptions

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Adding Elements to an Existing
Dictionary
• Dictionaries are mutable objects
• To add a new key-value pair:
dictionary[key] = value
– If key exists in the dictionary, the value associated with
it will be changed

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Deleting Elements From an Existing
Dictionary
• To delete a key-value pair:
del dictionary[key]
– If key is not in the dictionary, KeyError exception is
raised

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Getting the Number of Elements and
Mixing Data Types
• len function: used to obtain number of elements in a
dictionary
• Keys must be immutable objects, but associated
values can be any type of object
– One dictionary can include keys of several different
immutable types
• Values stored in a single dictionary can be of different
types

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Creating an Empty Dictionary and Using
for Loop to Iterate Over a Dictionary
• To create an empty dictionary:
– Use {}
– Use built-in function dict()
– Elements can be added to the dictionary as program
executes
• Use a for loop to iterate over a dictionary
– General format: for key in dictionary:

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Some Dictionary Methods (1 of 5)
• clear method: deletes all the elements in a
dictionary, leaving it empty
– Format: dictionary.clear()
• get method: gets a value associated with specified
key from the dictionary
– Format: dictionary.get(key, default)
 default is returned if key is not found
– Alternative to [] operator
 Cannot raise KeyError exception

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Some Dictionary Methods (2 of 5)
• items method: returns all the dictionaries keys and
associated values
– Format: dictionary.items()
– Returned as a dictionary view
 Each element in dictionary view is a tuple which contains
a key and its associated value
 Use a for loop to iterate over the tuples in the sequence
– Can use a variable which receives a tuple, or can use two
variables which receive key and value

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Some Dictionary Methods (3 of 5)
• keys method: returns all the dictionaries keys as a
sequence
– Format: dictionary.keys()
• pop method: returns value associated with specified
key and removes that key-value pair from the
dictionary
– Format: dictionary.pop(key, default)
 default is returned if key is not found

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Some Dictionary Methods (4 of 5)
• popitem method: Returns, as a tuple, the key-value
pair that was last added to the dictionary. The method
also removes the key-value pair from the dictionary.
– Format: dictionary.popitem()
– Key-value pair returned as a tuple
• values method: returns all the dictionaries values as
a sequence
– Format: dictionary.values()
– Use a for loop to iterate over the values

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Some Dictionary Methods (5 of 5)
Table 9-1 Some of the dictionary methods

Method Description
Clear Clears the contents of a dictionary.
get Gets the value associated with a specified key. If the key is not found, the method
does not raise an exception. Instead, it returns a default value.
items Returns all the keys in a dictionary and their associated values as a sequence of
tuples.
keys Returns all the keys in a dictionary as a sequence of tuples.
pop Returns the value associated with a specified key and removes that key-value pair
from the dictionary. If the key is not found, the method returns a default value.
popitem Returns, as a tuple, the key-value pair that was last added to the dictionary. The
method also removes the key-value pair from the dictionary.
values Returns all the values in the dictionary as a sequence of tuples.

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Dictionary Comprehensions (1 of 6)
• Dictionary comprehension: an expression that reads a
sequence of input elements and uses those input
elements to produce a dictionary

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Dictionary Comprehensions (2 of 6)
• Example: create a dictionary in which the keys are the
integers 1 through 4 and the values are the squares of the
keys >>> numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4]
Using a for >>> squares = {}
>>> for item in numbers:
loop
... squares[item] = item**2
...
>>> squares
{1: 1, 2: 4, 3: 9, 4: 16}
>>>

Using a >>> squares = {item:item**2 for item in

dictionary numbers}
comprehension >>> squares
{1: 1, 2: 4, 3: 9, 4: 16}
>>>

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Dictionary Comprehensions (3 of 6)

squares = {item:item**2 for item in numbers}

Result Expression Iteration Expression

• The iteration expression iterates over the elements of numbers

• Each time it iterates, the target variable item is assigned the value
of an element
• At the end of each iteration, an element containing item as the key
and item**2 as the value is added to the new dictionary

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Dictionary Comprehensions (4 of 6)
• Example: You have an existing list of strings. Create a
dictionary in which the keys are the stings in the list,
and the values are the lengths of the strings

>>> names = ['Jeremy', 'Kate', 'Peg']

>>> str_lengths = {item:len(item) for item in names}
>>> str_lengths
{'Jeremy': 6, 'Kate': 4, 'Peg': 3}
>>>

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Dictionary Comprehensions (5 of 6)
• Example: making a copy of a dictionary

>>> dict1 = {'A':1, 'B':2, 'C':3}

>>> dict2 = {k:v for k,v in dict1.items()}
>>> dict2
{'A': 1, 'B': 2, 'C': 3}
>>>

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Dictionary Comprehensions (6 of 6)
• You can use an if clause in a dictionary
comprehension to select only certain elements of the
input sequence
– Example: A dictionary contains cities and their populations
as key-value pairs. Select only the cities with a population
greater than 2 million
>>> populations = {'New York': 8398748, 'Los Angeles': 3990456,
... 'Chicago': 2705994, 'Houston': 2325502,
... 'Phoenix': 1660272, 'Philadelphia': 1584138}
>>> largest = {k:v for k,v in populations.items() if v >
2000000}
>>> largest
{'New York': 8398748, 'Los Angeles': 3990456, 'Chicago':
2705994, 'Houston': 2325502}
>>>
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Sets
• Set: object that stores a collection of data in same
way as mathematical set
– All items must be unique
– Set is unordered
– Elements can be of different data types

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Creating a Set
• set function: used to create a set
– For empty set, call set()
– For non-empty set, call set(argument) where
argument is an object that contains iterable elements
 e.g., argument can be a list, string, or tuple
 If argument is a string, each character becomes a set
element
– For set of strings, pass them to the function as a list
 If argument contains duplicates, only one of the
duplicates will appear in the set

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Getting the Number of and Adding
Elements
• len function: returns the number of elements in the
set
• Sets are mutable objects
• add method: adds an element to a set
• update method: adds a group of elements to a set
– Argument must be a sequence containing iterable
elements, and each of the elements is added to the set

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Deleting Elements From a Set
• remove and discard methods: remove the specified
item from the set
– The item that should be removed is passed to both
methods as an argument
– Behave differently when the specified item is not found
in the set
 remove method raises a KeyError exception
 discard method does not raise an exception

• clear method: clears all the elements of the set

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Using the for Loop, in, and not in
Operators With a Set
• A for loop can be used to iterate over elements in a
set
– General format: for item in set:
– The loop iterates once for each element in the set
• The in operator can be used to test whether a value
exists in a set
– Similarly, the not in operator can be used to test
whether a value does not exist in a set

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Finding the Union of Sets
• Union of two sets: a set that contains all the elements
of both sets
• To find the union of two sets:
– Use the union method
 Format: set1.union(set2)
– Use the | operator
 Format: set1 | set2
– Both techniques return a new set which contains the
union of both sets

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Finding the Intersection of Sets
• Intersection of two sets: a set that contains only the
elements found in both sets
• To find the intersection of two sets:
– Use the intersection method
 Format: set1.intersection(set2)
– Use the & operator
 Format: set1 & set2
– Both techniques return a new set which contains the
intersection of both sets

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Finding the Difference of Sets
• Difference of two sets: a set that contains the
elements that appear in the first set but do not appear
in the second set
• To find the difference of two sets:
– Use the difference method
 Format: set1.difference(set2)
– Use the - operator
 Format: set1 - set2

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Finding the Symmetric Difference of
Sets
• Symmetric difference of two sets: a set that contains
the elements that are not shared by the two sets
• To find the symmetric difference of two sets:
– Use the symmetric_difference method
 Format: set1.symmetric_difference(set2)
– Use the ^ operator
 Format: set1 ^ set2

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Finding Subsets and Supersets (1 of 2)
• Set A is subset of set B if all the elements in set A are
included in set B
• To determine whether set A is subset of set B
– Use the issubset method
 Format: setA.issubset(setB)
– Use the <= operator
 Format: setA <= setB

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Finding Subsets and Supersets (2 of 2)
• Set A is superset of set B if it contains all the elements
of set B
• To determine whether set A is superset of set B
– Use the issuperset method
 Format: setA.issuperset(setB)
– Use the >= operator
 Format: setA >= setB

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Set Comprehensions (1 of 4)
• Set comprehension: a concise expression that creates
a new set by iterating over the elements of a
sequence
• Set comprehensions are written just like list
comprehensions, except that a set comprehension is
enclosed in curly braces ({}) instead of brackets ([])

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Set Comprehensions (2 of 4)
• Example: making a copy of a set

>>> set1 = set([1, 2, 3, 4, 5])

>>> set2 = {item for item in set1}
>>> set2
{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
>>>

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Set Comprehensions (3 of 4)
• Example: creating a set that contains the squares of
the numbers stored in another set

>>> set1 = set([1, 2, 3, 4, 5])

>>> set2 = {item**2 for item in set1}
>>> set2
{1, 4, 9, 16, 25}
>>>

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Set Comprehensions (4 of 4)
• Example: copying the numbers in a set that are less
than 10

>>> set1 = set([1, 20, 2, 40, 3, 50])

>>> set2 = {item for item in set1 if item < 10}
>>> set2
{1, 2, 3}
>>>

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Serializing Objects (1 of 3)
• Serialize an object: convert the object to a stream of
bytes that can easily be stored in a file
• Pickling: serializing an object

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Serializing Objects (2 of 3)
• To pickle an object:
– Import the pickle module
– Open a file for binary writing
– Call the pickle.dump function
 Format: pickle.dump(object, file)
– Close the file
• You can pickle multiple objects to one file prior to
closing the file

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Serializing Objects (3 of 3)
• Unpickling: retrieving pickled object
• To unpickle an object:
– Import the pickle module
– Open a file for binary writing
– Call the pickle.load function
 Format: pickle.load(file)
– Close the file
• You can unpickle multiple objects from the file

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Summary (1 of 2)
• This chapter covered:
– Dictionaries, including:
 Creating dictionaries
 Inserting, retrieving, adding, and deleting key-value pairs
 for loops and in and not in operators
 Dictionary methods

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Summary (2 of 2)
• This chapter covered (cont’d):
– Sets:
 Creating sets
 Adding elements to and removing elements from sets
 Finding set union, intersection, difference and symmetric
difference
 Finding subsets and supersets
– Serializing objects
 Pickling and unpickling objects

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