Dictionary & Its Functions Explained | Python Tutorials For Absolute Beginners

Dictionaries in Python can be viewed as a particular type of data container that accomplishes the storage of data with the help of keys and values. They are changeable, exhaustible objects associating one or many unique values to keys which are not sequentially arranged. Here’s everything you need to know on Dictionaries and all they have to offer.

Creating a Dictionary

The dictionary can be initialized either through nested comma separated elements in curly braces {} with keys and the corresponding value or through the use of the ‘dict()’ constructor.

Accessing Values

To access a value in the dictionary, you use the key inside square brackets [] or the get() method.

Modifying a Dictionary

You can add or update key-value pairs in a dictionary.

Removing Elements

To remove elements, you can use pop(), popitem(), del, or clear().

Iterating Over a Dictionary

You can iterate over keys, values, or key-value pairs.

Dictionary Methods

Here are some common methods used with dictionaries:

keys(): Returns a view object of all keys.
values(): Returns a view object of all values.
items(): Returns a view object of all key-value pairs.
update(): Updates the dictionary with key-value pairs from another dictionary or an iterable of key-value pairs.

Dictionary Comprehensions

Dictionary comprehensions provide a concise way to create dictionaries.

Checking for Key Existence

Summary

Lists are more general and fast to store and to search the data through keys as in dictionaries. Dictionary in python concerning basic fundamentals like the formation and erasure along with methods and iteration should be grasped for Python programming.

Here's a quick reference to the main dictionary functions and methods:Here's a quick reference to the main dictionary functions and methods:

Creation: {} or dict()

Access: [], .get()

Modify: [], .update()

Remove: .pop(), .popitem(), del, .clear()

Iteration: .keys(), .values(), .items()

Methods: .update(), .keys(), .values(), .items()

These concepts can help in mastering the operational issues of dictionaries and are useful for managing dictionaries in Python projects.