Diving Into Python: Chapter 12

Hello guys!

This is the 12th part of the article series about Python. In this article series you will learn Python step-by-step and easily.

Getting Theme

For getting the theme of Python, kindly go through my previous articles:

Diving Into Python : Chapter 1
Diving Into Python : Chapter 2
Diving Into Python : Chapter 3
Diving Into Python : Chapter 4
Diving Into Python : Chapter 5
Diving Into Python : Chapter 6
Diving Into Python : Chapter 7
Diving Into Python : Chapter 8
Diving Into Python : Chapter 9
Diving Into Python : Chapter 10
Diving Into Python : Chapter 11

Dictionary

Dictionaries are like containers that can be used for holding a value or set of values (elements). The concept of a dictionary in Python is the same as the concept of a hash in several other programming languages.



The entire concept of dictionary rotates around the following two essential things:

• Values
• Keys

The Keys are for accessing a specific value at an address and the Values are the stuff that is at that address. This might sound a bit confusing but there is no need to worry, one example will smash it all.

Example

EmpDetails = {‘Mr.X’ : ‘Dev’ , \
‘Mr. Y’ : ‘DB Admin’, \
‘Mr. Z’ : ‘UI Designer’, \ }

Explanation: Consider the preceding example here:



The preceding description clearly states the what the keys are, the values and dictionary name in the example shown above.

I hope now you guys are a bit clear.

Creating a Dictionary

A simple dictionary can be created in the following two ways.

Using Multiline statements

I already discussed about multiline statements in my previous article, so for a better understanding I suggest you guys go through the previous parts.

Example

EmpDetails = {‘Mr.X’ : ‘Dev’ , \
‘Mr. Y’ : ‘DB Admin’, \
‘Mr. Z’ : ‘UI Designer’, \ }

Using "{}" brackets

I already explained that these types of statements use braces in my previous article, so for a better understanding I suggest you guys go through the previous parts.

Example

EmpDetails = {‘Mr.X’ : ‘Dev’ , ‘Mr. Y’ : ‘DB Admin’, ‘Mr. Z’ : ‘UI Designer’ };

Accessing Values in Dictionary: For accessing elements in the dictionary, you don't need to do any herculean task. Just go through the approach that we used to do in Lists / Tuples in Python.

We need to use one and only those square brackets "[]" along with the key or index. Let's have a look.

Example

# Accessing Dictionary

dict = {'Programmer': 'Business Layer', 'DataBase Admin': 'Database Layer', 'UI Developer': 'Presentation Layer'};
print ("dict['Programmer']: ", dict['Programmer'])
print ("dict['UI Developer']: ", dict['UI Developer'])

Output



Operations | Dictionary



Dictionary | Updating:  You can do updates in the dictionary in one of the following ways:

• Adding a new element
• Updating a new key value
• Modifying an existing entry
• Deleting an existing entry

Let's explore it with an example.

Example

# Updating Dictionary

dict = {'Programmer': 'Business Layer', 'DataBase Admin': 'Database Layer', 'UI Developer': 'Presentation Layer'};

# Updating a New Entry

dict['Programmer'] = 'Architecture Design';

# Showing New Entry

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

Output


Dictionary | Deletes: In Python you either delete a single element or all the dictionary elements. To do delete in a dictionary, we use a del statement.

Example

# Deletion in Dictionary

dict = {'Programmer': 'Business Layer', 'DataBase Admin': 'Database Layer', 'UI Developer': 'Presentation Layer'};
del dict['UI Developer'];
dict.clear(); # remove all entries in dict
del dict ; # delete entire dictionary
print ("dict['Programmer']: ", dict['programmer'])
print ("dict['Database Admin']: ", dict['Database Admin'])

Output


Explanation

As you can see, after deletion there will be no elements in the dictionary. That's why it's giving an error.

Built-in Tuple functions

Here are some built-in tuple functions.

Dictionary | Compare

This built-in function is used for comparing two dictionaries. It compares them in terms of their elements.

Example

dict1 = ('CSK', 180)
dict2 = ('MI', 175)
print (cmp(dict1, dict2))
print (cmp(dict2, dict1))

Output

-1 , 1

Dictionary | Length
As the name of this built-in function suggests, it is used for getting the length of any tuple value from a dictionary.

Example

tup = len ('C# Corner')
print (a)

Output: 9

Guidelines from my side

• Do as much as code you can.
• Code anything you want, the best way to learn.
• Don't just study things, try to learn them.
• Work on your Concepts.
• Work on the fundamentals of any technology or stuff you want to learn

Moto

“Keep calm and code Python”.

I tried to make this an interesting and interactive article and wish you guys going to like that, meanwhile if you have any suggestions then your welcome.

Until the next part, keep sharing!