Python Programming Language: How to Loop Through Dictionaries
Hi everyone, welcome back. In these examples, we will be going over how to loop through dictionaries in Python. Dictionaries can be used to store a collection of data. Dictionaries use key-value pairs to store data compared to using index numbers. Dictionaries are mutable and does not allow for duplicate keys. For Python 3.7 and higher, dictionaries are ordered whereas in earlier versions, dictionaries are unordered. With this introduction out of the way, let’s get into it.
Creating Dictionary
Let’s start by creating our dictionary:
myDictionary = {
"first": "A",
"second": "B",
"third": "C",
}
print(myDictionary)
Output:
{'first': 'A', 'second': 'B', 'third': 'C'}
So now, we have a populated dictionary with a few elements. We can verify that it was successfully created and populated by printing the dictionary and checking the output. Now let’s see how we can loop through the dictionary.
Looping Through Dictionary Keys
Let’s start by seeing how we can loop through the dictionary keys. We can retrieve all the keys within a dictionary by using the built in keys() function that is provided. Let’s see an example:
myDictionary = {
"first": "A",
"second": "B",
"third": "C",
}
for x in myDictionary.keys():
print(x)
Output:
first
second
third
In the example above, we can see that we used the keys() function to retrieve each key individually. We can verify that we are successfully retrieving each key individually by printing the dictionary and checking the output.
Looping Through Dictionary Values
Now let’s see how we can loop through the dictionary values. We can retrieve all the values within a dictionary by using the built in values() function that is provided. Let’s see an example:
myDictionary = {
"first": "A",
"second": "B",
"third": "C",
}
for x in myDictionary.values():
print(x)
Output:
A
B
C
In the example above, we can see that we used the values() function to retrieve each value individually. We can verify that we are successfully retrieving each value individually by printing the dictionary and checking the output.
Looping Through Dictionary Keys And Values
Now, let’s see how we can loop through the dictionary keys and values. We can retrieve all the keys and values within a dictionary by using the built in items() function that is provided. Let’s see an example:
myDictionary = {
"first": "A",
"second": "B",
"third": "C",
}
for x, y in myDictionary.items():
print(x + ": " + y)
Output:
first: A
second: B
third: C
In the example above, we can see that we used the items() function to retrieve each of the key-value pairs. We can verify that we are successfully retrieving each key-value pair by printing the dictionary and checking the output.
Conclusion
That is it for how to loop through dictionaries in Python. We covered how to retrieve and loop through dictionary keys, values, and key-value pairs. I hope this helps. If there are any questions or comments, please let me know. Thanks for reading.