How To Create A Dictionary List In Python

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Python is a high-level general-purpose programming language.Python is one of the most popular and widely used programming languages in the world Python is used for data analytics, machine learning, and even design. Python is used in a wide range of domains owing to its simple yet powerful nature. In this article, we will be discussing lists & dictionaries datatypes.

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Lists

Lists are mutable data types in Python. Lists is a 0 based index datatype meaning the index of the first element starts at 0. Lists are used to store multiple items in a single variable. Lists are one of the 4 data types present in Python i.e. Lists, Dictionary, Tuple & Set.

Accessing the list element

The elements of lists can be done by placing index number in square brackets as shown below

num_list=[10,20,30,40,50,60,70,80,90] city_list=['Agra','Chennai', 'Ahmedabad', 'Surat', 'Lucknow', 'Coimbatore']

print(city_list[2])

Output

Ahmedabad

We also have a negative index number as shown below

print(city_list[-1])

Output

Coimbatore

Negative index references the list from the last value, in this case, it is Coimbatore

Index Range

Index range represents the portion of the list that you want to extract as shown in the below example

print(city_list[2:5])

Output

['Ahmedabad', 'Surat', 'Lucknow']

If you want to find the index value of an item in lists provided the item in know, this can be done as shown below

print(city_list.index('Chennai',0,3))

Output

Working with operators in List

The addition of two lists can be performed using the + operator. The + operator concatenates both the lists

num_city_list= num_list+ city_list print(num_city_list)

Output

[10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 'Agra', 'Chennai', 'Ahmedabad', 'Surat', 'Lucknow', 'Coimbatore']

The * operator is used to extend the list by copying the same values

new_citylist= city_list*2 print(new_citylist)

Output

['Agra', 'Chennai', 'Ahmedabad', 'Surat', 'Lucknow', 'Coimbatore', 'Agra', 'Chennai', 'Ahmedabad', 'Surat', 'Lucknow', 'Coimbatore']

Nested Lists

A list is nested if another list is present inside it. In the below list there are two elements and both of them are list.

list_nest=[[10,20,30],['a','b','c']] list_nest

Output

[[10, 20, 30], ['a', 'b', 'c']]

The elements of a nested list can be accessed as shown below

print(list_nest[1][2])

Output

Updating the lists

In updating the list there is various function. One can append, extend, insert and change the lists. We will see all of them one by one.

Append the lists

Append is used when you want to add one item to the list.

city_list=['Agra','Chennai', 'Ahmedabad', 'Surat', 'Lucknow', 'Coimbatore'] city_list.append('Bangalore') print(city_list)

Output

['Agra', 'Chennai', 'Ahmedabad', 'Surat', 'Lucknow', 'Coimbatore', 'Bangalore']

Extend the list

Extend is used when you want to add more than one item to the list

num_list=[10,20,30,40,50,60,70,80,90] num_list.extend([100,110,120,130,140,150]) print(num_list)

Output

[10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110, 120, 130, 140, 150]

Change the lists

Change is used when you want to update a specific item in a list.

num_list[7]= 200 print(num_list)

Output

[10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 200, 90, 100, 110, 120, 130, 140, 150]

Insert in the lists

It is used to insert values at the provided index

city_list=['Agra','Chennai', 'Ahmedabad', 'Surat', 'Lucknow', 'Coimbatore'] city_list.insert(4,'Vadodara') print(city_list)

Output

['Agra', 'Chennai', 'Ahmedabad', 'Surat', 'Vadodara', 'Lucknow', 'Coimbatore']

Deleting items in a list

You can remove an item in a list by providing the item index or range that needs to be removed

city_list=['Agra','Chennai', 'Ahmedabad', 'Surat', 'Lucknow', 'Coimbatore'] del city_list[4] print(city_list)

Output

['Agra', 'Chennai', 'Ahmedabad', 'Surat', 'Coimbatore']

del city_list[4:6] print(city_list)

Output

['Agra', 'Chennai', 'Ahmedabad', 'Surat']

You can also delete the complete list using the below command

del city_list

Emptying a list

This is very easy to do as shown below

city_list=['Agra','Chennai', 'Ahmedabad', 'Surat', 'Lucknow', 'Coimbatore'] city_list=[] print(city_list)

Output

[]

Methods present in a list

Length

Lenght is used to find how many elements are present inside the list

city_list=['Agra','Chennai', 'Ahmedabad', 'Surat', 'Lucknow', 'Coimbatore'] print(len(city_list))

Output

Clear

Clear is used to delete elements in a list

num_list=[1,2,2,2,3,4,5,6,6,7,6,7] print(num_list.clear())

Output

None

Reverse

The reverse function is used to reverse the elements of a list as shown below

city_list=['Agra','Chennai', 'Ahmedabad', 'Surat', 'Lucknow', 'Coimbatore'] city_list.reverse() print(city_list)

Output

['Coimbatore', 'Lucknow', 'Surat', 'Ahmedabad', 'Chennai', 'Agra']

Sort

Sort is used to sort the elements in a list. By default, it sorts in ascending order, to sort in descending order one parameter needs to be provided in the sort function as shown below

num_list=[1,2,2,2,3,4,5,6,6,7,6,7] num_list.sort(reverse=True) print(num_list)

Output

[7, 7, 6, 6, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1]

Dictionary

Dictionaries are mutable data types in nature meaning they can be updated after they are created. Syntactically they are written in a key, value pair format inside curly braces.

{Key1:Value1,Key2:Value2,Key3:Value3,Key4:Value4}

Keys are always unique and there cannot be any duplicates. There is no index in the dictionary meaning they are not ordered. Key is the default iterator and is used to retrieve the value.

Source: Try to Program

How a Dictionary is created?

There are four ways in which a dictionary can be created

1) Empty Dictionary

dict_emp={} print(dict_emp)

Output:

{}

2) When keys are integer values

dict_city={1: 'Ahmedabad', 2: 'Chennai', 3: 'Coimbatore',4:'Surat',5:'Agra'} print(dict_city)

Output

{1: 'Ahmedabad', 2: 'Chennai', 3: 'Coimbatore', 4: 'Surat', 5: 'Agra'}

3) When keys are string values

dict_travel={'Country1':'USA', 'Country2': 'India', 'Country3':'Japan', 'Country4':'UK', 'Country5': 'Australia'} print(dict_travel)

Output

{'Country1': 'USA', 'Country2': 'India', 'Country3': 'Japan', 'Country4': 'UK', 'Country5': 'Australia'}

4) When mixed keys are present

mixed_dict= {'Country':'India', 1456:'Free','list':['city', 'road',12]} print(mixed_dict)

Output

{'Country': 'India', 1456: 'Free', 'list': ['city', 'road', 12]}

Different ways to access list elements

Let's create two dictionary

dict_salesid= {'SID1': Fiat                'SID2': Mercedes                'SID3': Maruti                'SID4': Volkswagen                'SID5': Kia}

dict_salesinfo= {'SID':Fiat,                 'Sales': 20000                 'LaunchDay':'Wed'                 'Cost': 500000}

Length of the dictionary

print(len(dict_salesid))

Output

Extracting dictionary element using its key

sales_id='SID2' if sales_id in dict_salesid:     name= dict_salesid[sales_id]     print('Sales ID is {}, Sales name is {}'. format(sales_id,name)) else:     print('Sales ID {} not found'.format(sales_id))

Output

Sales ID is SID2, Sales name is Mercedes

Setting dictionary element using its key

First we have set the dictionary element and then we have retrieved it using get function

dict_salesinfo['LaunchDay']='Thurs' dict_salesinfo['Cost']=6000000 LaunchDay= dict_salesinfo.get('LaunchDay') Cost=dict_salesinfo.get('Cost') print('Launchday is {}, Cost is {}'. format(LaunchDay,Cost))

Output

Launchday is Thurs, Cost is 6000000

Delete

A dictionary object can be deleted using the del statement

del dict_salesinfo

Output:

The dictionary object is deleted

Deleting a specific item

To delete a specific item pass on the dictionary key in the del statement as shown below

del dict_salesinfo['SID'] print(dict_salesinfo)

Output

{'Sales': 20000, 'LaunchDay': 'Wed', 'Cost': 500000}

Another way to delete a specific item is using the pop function

print(dict_salesinfo.pop('SID'))

Output

Fiat

The pop function also returns the key value that is being deleted. In this case, it is Fiat.

The third method to delete a dictionary object is using the clear method

print(dict_salesinfo.clear())

Output

None

Looping through a dictionary object

We will use the same dictionary object dict_salesinfo. Using the keys function first save all the keys in a dict_key variable

dict_keys= dict_salesinfo.keys()

print(dict_keys)

print(type(dict_keys))

Output

dict_keys(['SID', 'Sales', 'LaunchDay', 'Cost']) <class 'dict_keys'>

for var in dict_keys:

print(var + ":" + str(dict_salesinfo[var]))

Output

SID:Fiat Sales:20000 LaunchDay:Wed Cost:500000

Printing dictionary object values in key, value pair

dict_values= dict_salesinfo.values() print(dict_values)

Output

dict_values(['Fiat', 20000, 'Wed', 500000])

Using the items() function

The item function converts a dictionary item into a tuple

dict_items= dict_salesinfo.items() print(dict_items) print(type(dict_items))

Output

dict_items([('SID', 'Fiat'), ('Sales', 20000), ('LaunchDay', 'Wed'), ('Cost', 500000)]) <class 'dict_items'>

Looping through the items function

for key, value in dict_salesinfo.items():     print(key +"-"+str(value))

Output

SID-Fiat Sales-20000 LaunchDay-Wed Cost-500000

Converting a list into a dictionary object

Dictionary object contains key-value pairs, and the list must adhere to this format or else it will throw an error.

sales_infolist=[['SID','Fiat'],['Sales','20000'],['LaunchDay','Wed'],['Cost','500000']] print(type(sales_infolist)) sales_infolist_dict= dict(sales_infolist) print(type(sales_infolist_dict))

Output

<class 'list'> <class 'dict'>

Copying a dictionary into a new dictionary

dict_salesinfo_new= dict_salesinfo.copy() print(dict_salesinfo_new)

Output

{'SID': 'Fiat', 'Sales': 20000, 'LaunchDay': 'Wed', 'Cost': 500000}

Updating the dictionary object

The update method is used to update the dictionary object with a

dict_salesinfo= {'SID':'Fiat','Sales': 20000,'LaunchDay':'Wed','Cost': 500000} dict_salesinfo.update({'Profit':'50000'}) print(dict_salesinfo)

Output

{'SID': 'Fiat', 'Sales': 20000, 'LaunchDay': 'Wed', 'Cost': 500000, 'Profit': '50000'}

I hope you enjoyed reading, and feel free to use my code to try it out for your purposes. Also, if there is any feedback on code or just the blog post, feel free to email me at [email protected]

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