Related
With Python 2.7, I can get dictionary keys, values, or items as a list:
>>> newdict = {1:0, 2:0, 3:0}
>>> newdict.keys()
[1, 2, 3]
With Python >= 3.3, I get:
>>> newdict.keys()
dict_keys([1, 2, 3])
How do I get a plain list of keys with Python 3?
This will convert the dict_keys object to a list:
list(newdict.keys())
On the other hand, you should ask yourself whether or not it matters. It is Pythonic to assume duck typing -- if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it is a duck. The dict_keys object can be iterated over just like a list. For instance:
for key in newdict.keys():
print(key)
Note that dict_keys doesn't support insertion newdict[k] = v, though you may not need it.
Python >= 3.5 alternative: unpack into a list literal [*newdict]
New unpacking generalizations (PEP 448) were introduced with Python 3.5 allowing you to now easily do:
>>> newdict = {1:0, 2:0, 3:0}
>>> [*newdict]
[1, 2, 3]
Unpacking with * works with any object that is iterable and, since dictionaries return their keys when iterated through, you can easily create a list by using it within a list literal.
Adding .keys() i.e [*newdict.keys()] might help in making your intent a bit more explicit though it will cost you a function look-up and invocation. (which, in all honesty, isn't something you should really be worried about).
The *iterable syntax is similar to doing list(iterable) and its behaviour was initially documented in the Calls section of the Python Reference manual. With PEP 448 the restriction on where *iterable could appear was loosened allowing it to also be placed in list, set and tuple literals, the reference manual on Expression lists was also updated to state this.
Though equivalent to list(newdict) with the difference that it's faster (at least for small dictionaries) because no function call is actually performed:
%timeit [*newdict]
1000000 loops, best of 3: 249 ns per loop
%timeit list(newdict)
1000000 loops, best of 3: 508 ns per loop
%timeit [k for k in newdict]
1000000 loops, best of 3: 574 ns per loop
with larger dictionaries the speed is pretty much the same (the overhead of iterating through a large collection trumps the small cost of a function call).
In a similar fashion, you can create tuples and sets of dictionary keys:
>>> *newdict,
(1, 2, 3)
>>> {*newdict}
{1, 2, 3}
beware of the trailing comma in the tuple case!
list(newdict) works in both Python 2 and Python 3, providing a simple list of the keys in newdict. keys() isn't necessary.
You can also use a list comprehension:
>>> newdict = {1:0, 2:0, 3:0}
>>> [k for k in newdict.keys()]
[1, 2, 3]
Or, shorter,
>>> [k for k in newdict]
[1, 2, 3]
Note: Order is not guaranteed on versions under 3.7 (ordering is still only an implementation detail with CPython 3.6).
A bit off on the "duck typing" definition -- dict.keys() returns an iterable object, not a list-like object. It will work anywhere an iterable will work -- not any place a list will. a list is also an iterable, but an iterable is NOT a list (or sequence...)
In real use-cases, the most common thing to do with the keys in a dict is to iterate through them, so this makes sense. And if you do need them as a list you can call list().
Very similarly for zip() -- in the vast majority of cases, it is iterated through -- why create an entire new list of tuples just to iterate through it and then throw it away again?
This is part of a large trend in python to use more iterators (and generators), rather than copies of lists all over the place.
dict.keys() should work with comprehensions, though -- check carefully for typos or something... it works fine for me:
>>> d = dict(zip(['Sounder V Depth, F', 'Vessel Latitude, Degrees-Minutes'], [None, None]))
>>> [key.split(", ") for key in d.keys()]
[['Sounder V Depth', 'F'], ['Vessel Latitude', 'Degrees-Minutes']]
If you need to store the keys separately, here's a solution that requires less typing than every other solution presented thus far, using Extended Iterable Unpacking (Python3.x+):
newdict = {1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0}
*k, = newdict
k
# [1, 2, 3]
Operation
no. Of characters
k = list(d)
9 characters (excluding whitespace)
k = [*d]
6 characters
*k, = d
5 characters
Converting to a list without using the keys method makes it more readable:
list(newdict)
and, when looping through dictionaries, there's no need for keys():
for key in newdict:
print key
unless you are modifying it within the loop which would require a list of keys created beforehand:
for key in list(newdict):
del newdict[key]
On Python 2 there is a marginal performance gain using keys().
Yes, There is a better and simplest way to do this in python3.X
use inbuild list() function
#Devil
newdict = {1:0, 2:0, 3:0}
key_list = list(newdict)
print(key_list)
#[1, 2, 3]
I can think of 2 ways in which we can extract the keys from the dictionary.
Method 1: -
To get the keys using .keys() method and then convert it to list.
some_dict = {1: 'one', 2: 'two', 3: 'three'}
list_of_keys = list(some_dict.keys())
print(list_of_keys)
-->[1,2,3]
Method 2: -
To create an empty list and then append keys to the list via a loop.
You can get the values with this loop as well (use .keys() for just keys and .items() for both keys and values extraction)
list_of_keys = []
list_of_values = []
for key,val in some_dict.items():
list_of_keys.append(key)
list_of_values.append(val)
print(list_of_keys)
-->[1,2,3]
print(list_of_values)
-->['one','two','three']
Beyond the classic (and probably more correct) way to do this (some_dict.keys()) there is also a more "cool" and surely more interesting way to do this:
some_dict = { "foo": "bar", "cool": "python!" }
print( [*some_dict] == ["foo", "cool"] ) # True
Note: this solution shouldn't be used in a develop environment; I showed it here just because I thought it was quite interesting from the *-operator-over-dictionary side of view. Also, I'm not sure whether this is a documented feature or not, and its behaviour may change in later versions :)
You can you use simple method like below
keys = newdict.keys()
print(keys)
This is the best way to get key List in one line of code
dict_variable = {1:"a",2:"b",3:"c"}
[key_val for key_val in dict_variable.keys()]
This question already has answers here:
How do I initialize a dictionary of empty lists in Python?
(7 answers)
Closed 2 years ago.
I came across this behavior that surprised me in Python 2.6 and 3.2:
>>> xs = dict.fromkeys(range(2), [])
>>> xs
{0: [], 1: []}
>>> xs[0].append(1)
>>> xs
{0: [1], 1: [1]}
However, dict comprehensions in 3.2 show a more polite demeanor:
>>> xs = {i:[] for i in range(2)}
>>> xs
{0: [], 1: []}
>>> xs[0].append(1)
>>> xs
{0: [1], 1: []}
>>>
Why does fromkeys behave like that?
Your Python 2.6 example is equivalent to the following, which may help to clarify:
>>> a = []
>>> xs = dict.fromkeys(range(2), a)
Each entry in the resulting dictionary will have a reference to the same object. The effects of mutating that object will be visible through every dict entry, as you've seen, because it's one object.
>>> xs[0] is a and xs[1] is a
True
Use a dict comprehension, or if you're stuck on Python 2.6 or older and you don't have dictionary comprehensions, you can get the dict comprehension behavior by using dict() with a generator expression:
xs = dict((i, []) for i in range(2))
In the first version, you use the same empty list object as the value for both keys, so if you change one, you change the other, too.
Look at this:
>>> empty = []
>>> d = dict.fromkeys(range(2), empty)
>>> d
{0: [], 1: []}
>>> empty.append(1) # same as d[0].append(1) because d[0] references empty!
>>> d
{0: [1], 1: [1]}
In the second version, a new empty list object is created in every iteration of the dict comprehension, so both are independent from each other.
As to "why" fromkeys() works like that - well, it would be surprising if it didn't work like that. fromkeys(iterable, value) constructs a new dict with keys from iterable that all have the value value. If that value is a mutable object, and you change that object, what else could you reasonably expect to happen?
To answer the actual question being asked: fromkeys behaves like that because there is no other reasonable choice. It is not reasonable (or even possible) to have fromkeys decide whether or not your argument is mutable and make new copies every time. In some cases it doesn't make sense, and in others it's just impossible.
The second argument you pass in is therefore just a reference, and is copied as such. An assignment of [] in Python means "a single reference to a new list", not "make a new list every time I access this variable". The alternative would be to pass in a function that generates new instances, which is the functionality that dict comprehensions supply for you.
Here are some options for creating multiple actual copies of a mutable container:
As you mention in the question, dict comprehensions allow you to execute an arbitrary statement for each element:
d = {k: [] for k in range(2)}
The important thing here is that this is equivalent to putting the assignment k = [] in a for loop. Each iteration creates a new list and assigns it to a value.
Use the form of the dict constructor suggested by #Andrew Clark:
d = dict((k, []) for k in range(2))
This creates a generator which again makes the assignment of a new list to each key-value pair when it is executed.
Use a collections.defaultdict instead of a regular dict:
d = collections.defaultdict(list)
This option is a little different from the others. Instead of creating the new list references up front, defaultdict will call list every time you access a key that's not already there. You can there fore add the keys as lazily as you want, which can be very convenient sometimes:
for k in range(2):
d[k].append(42)
Since you've set up the factory for new elements, this will actually behave exactly as you expected fromkeys to behave in the original question.
Use dict.setdefault when you access potentially new keys. This does something similar to what defaultdict does, but it has the advantage of being more controlled, in the sense that only the access you want to create new keys actually creates them:
d = {}
for k in range(2):
d.setdefault(k, []).append(42)
The disadvantage is that a new empty list object gets created every time you call the function, even if it never gets assigned to a value. This is not a huge problem, but it could add up if you call it frequently and/or your container is not as simple as list.
This question already has answers here:
How do I initialize a dictionary of empty lists in Python?
(7 answers)
Closed 2 years ago.
I came across this behavior that surprised me in Python 2.6 and 3.2:
>>> xs = dict.fromkeys(range(2), [])
>>> xs
{0: [], 1: []}
>>> xs[0].append(1)
>>> xs
{0: [1], 1: [1]}
However, dict comprehensions in 3.2 show a more polite demeanor:
>>> xs = {i:[] for i in range(2)}
>>> xs
{0: [], 1: []}
>>> xs[0].append(1)
>>> xs
{0: [1], 1: []}
>>>
Why does fromkeys behave like that?
Your Python 2.6 example is equivalent to the following, which may help to clarify:
>>> a = []
>>> xs = dict.fromkeys(range(2), a)
Each entry in the resulting dictionary will have a reference to the same object. The effects of mutating that object will be visible through every dict entry, as you've seen, because it's one object.
>>> xs[0] is a and xs[1] is a
True
Use a dict comprehension, or if you're stuck on Python 2.6 or older and you don't have dictionary comprehensions, you can get the dict comprehension behavior by using dict() with a generator expression:
xs = dict((i, []) for i in range(2))
In the first version, you use the same empty list object as the value for both keys, so if you change one, you change the other, too.
Look at this:
>>> empty = []
>>> d = dict.fromkeys(range(2), empty)
>>> d
{0: [], 1: []}
>>> empty.append(1) # same as d[0].append(1) because d[0] references empty!
>>> d
{0: [1], 1: [1]}
In the second version, a new empty list object is created in every iteration of the dict comprehension, so both are independent from each other.
As to "why" fromkeys() works like that - well, it would be surprising if it didn't work like that. fromkeys(iterable, value) constructs a new dict with keys from iterable that all have the value value. If that value is a mutable object, and you change that object, what else could you reasonably expect to happen?
To answer the actual question being asked: fromkeys behaves like that because there is no other reasonable choice. It is not reasonable (or even possible) to have fromkeys decide whether or not your argument is mutable and make new copies every time. In some cases it doesn't make sense, and in others it's just impossible.
The second argument you pass in is therefore just a reference, and is copied as such. An assignment of [] in Python means "a single reference to a new list", not "make a new list every time I access this variable". The alternative would be to pass in a function that generates new instances, which is the functionality that dict comprehensions supply for you.
Here are some options for creating multiple actual copies of a mutable container:
As you mention in the question, dict comprehensions allow you to execute an arbitrary statement for each element:
d = {k: [] for k in range(2)}
The important thing here is that this is equivalent to putting the assignment k = [] in a for loop. Each iteration creates a new list and assigns it to a value.
Use the form of the dict constructor suggested by #Andrew Clark:
d = dict((k, []) for k in range(2))
This creates a generator which again makes the assignment of a new list to each key-value pair when it is executed.
Use a collections.defaultdict instead of a regular dict:
d = collections.defaultdict(list)
This option is a little different from the others. Instead of creating the new list references up front, defaultdict will call list every time you access a key that's not already there. You can there fore add the keys as lazily as you want, which can be very convenient sometimes:
for k in range(2):
d[k].append(42)
Since you've set up the factory for new elements, this will actually behave exactly as you expected fromkeys to behave in the original question.
Use dict.setdefault when you access potentially new keys. This does something similar to what defaultdict does, but it has the advantage of being more controlled, in the sense that only the access you want to create new keys actually creates them:
d = {}
for k in range(2):
d.setdefault(k, []).append(42)
The disadvantage is that a new empty list object gets created every time you call the function, even if it never gets assigned to a value. This is not a huge problem, but it could add up if you call it frequently and/or your container is not as simple as list.
With Python 2.7, I can get dictionary keys, values, or items as a list:
newdict = {1:0, 2:0, 3:0}
newdict.keys()
# [1, 2, 3]
With Python >= 3.3, I get:
newdict.keys()
# dict_keys([1, 2, 3])
How do I get a plain list of keys with Python 3?
This will convert the dict_keys object to a list:
list(newdict.keys())
On the other hand, you should ask yourself whether or not it matters. It is Pythonic to assume duck typing -- if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it is a duck. The dict_keys object can be iterated over just like a list. For instance:
for key in newdict.keys():
print(key)
Note that dict_keys doesn't support insertion newdict[k] = v, though you may not need it.
Python >= 3.5 alternative: unpack into a list literal [*newdict]
New unpacking generalizations (PEP 448) were introduced with Python 3.5 allowing you to now easily do:
>>> newdict = {1:0, 2:0, 3:0}
>>> [*newdict]
[1, 2, 3]
Unpacking with * works with any object that is iterable and, since dictionaries return their keys when iterated through, you can easily create a list by using it within a list literal.
Adding .keys() i.e [*newdict.keys()] might help in making your intent a bit more explicit though it will cost you a function look-up and invocation. (which, in all honesty, isn't something you should really be worried about).
The *iterable syntax is similar to doing list(iterable) and its behaviour was initially documented in the Calls section of the Python Reference manual. With PEP 448 the restriction on where *iterable could appear was loosened allowing it to also be placed in list, set and tuple literals, the reference manual on Expression lists was also updated to state this.
Though equivalent to list(newdict) with the difference that it's faster (at least for small dictionaries) because no function call is actually performed:
%timeit [*newdict]
1000000 loops, best of 3: 249 ns per loop
%timeit list(newdict)
1000000 loops, best of 3: 508 ns per loop
%timeit [k for k in newdict]
1000000 loops, best of 3: 574 ns per loop
with larger dictionaries the speed is pretty much the same (the overhead of iterating through a large collection trumps the small cost of a function call).
In a similar fashion, you can create tuples and sets of dictionary keys:
>>> *newdict,
(1, 2, 3)
>>> {*newdict}
{1, 2, 3}
beware of the trailing comma in the tuple case!
list(newdict) works in both Python 2 and Python 3, providing a simple list of the keys in newdict. keys() isn't necessary.
You can also use a list comprehension:
>>> newdict = {1:0, 2:0, 3:0}
>>> [k for k in newdict.keys()]
[1, 2, 3]
Or, shorter,
>>> [k for k in newdict]
[1, 2, 3]
Note: Order is not guaranteed on versions under 3.7 (ordering is still only an implementation detail with CPython 3.6).
A bit off on the "duck typing" definition -- dict.keys() returns an iterable object, not a list-like object. It will work anywhere an iterable will work -- not any place a list will. a list is also an iterable, but an iterable is NOT a list (or sequence...)
In real use-cases, the most common thing to do with the keys in a dict is to iterate through them, so this makes sense. And if you do need them as a list you can call list().
Very similarly for zip() -- in the vast majority of cases, it is iterated through -- why create an entire new list of tuples just to iterate through it and then throw it away again?
This is part of a large trend in python to use more iterators (and generators), rather than copies of lists all over the place.
dict.keys() should work with comprehensions, though -- check carefully for typos or something... it works fine for me:
>>> d = dict(zip(['Sounder V Depth, F', 'Vessel Latitude, Degrees-Minutes'], [None, None]))
>>> [key.split(", ") for key in d.keys()]
[['Sounder V Depth', 'F'], ['Vessel Latitude', 'Degrees-Minutes']]
If you need to store the keys separately, here's a solution that requires less typing than every other solution presented thus far, using Extended Iterable Unpacking (Python3.x+):
newdict = {1: 0, 2: 0, 3: 0}
*k, = newdict
k
# [1, 2, 3]
Operation
no. Of characters
k = list(d)
9 characters (excluding whitespace)
k = [*d]
6 characters
*k, = d
5 characters
Converting to a list without using the keys method makes it more readable:
list(newdict)
and, when looping through dictionaries, there's no need for keys():
for key in newdict:
print key
unless you are modifying it within the loop which would require a list of keys created beforehand:
for key in list(newdict):
del newdict[key]
On Python 2 there is a marginal performance gain using keys().
Yes, There is a better and simplest way to do this in python3.X
use inbuild list() function
#Devil
newdict = {1:0, 2:0, 3:0}
key_list = list(newdict)
print(key_list)
#[1, 2, 3]
I can think of 2 ways in which we can extract the keys from the dictionary.
Method 1: -
To get the keys using .keys() method and then convert it to list.
some_dict = {1: 'one', 2: 'two', 3: 'three'}
list_of_keys = list(some_dict.keys())
print(list_of_keys)
-->[1,2,3]
Method 2: -
To create an empty list and then append keys to the list via a loop.
You can get the values with this loop as well (use .keys() for just keys and .items() for both keys and values extraction)
list_of_keys = []
list_of_values = []
for key,val in some_dict.items():
list_of_keys.append(key)
list_of_values.append(val)
print(list_of_keys)
-->[1,2,3]
print(list_of_values)
-->['one','two','three']
Beyond the classic (and probably more correct) way to do this (some_dict.keys()) there is also a more "cool" and surely more interesting way to do this:
some_dict = { "foo": "bar", "cool": "python!" }
print( [*some_dict] == ["foo", "cool"] ) # True
Note: this solution shouldn't be used in a develop environment; I showed it here just because I thought it was quite interesting from the *-operator-over-dictionary side of view. Also, I'm not sure whether this is a documented feature or not, and its behaviour may change in later versions :)
You can you use simple method like below
keys = newdict.keys()
print(keys)
This is the best way to get key List in one line of code
dict_variable = {1:"a",2:"b",3:"c"}
[key_val for key_val in dict_variable.keys()]
Get a list of keys with specific values
You can select a subset of the keys that satisfies a specific condition. For example, if you want to select the list of keys where the corresponding values are not None, then use
[k for k,v in newdict.items() if v is not None]
Slice the list of keys in a dictionary
Since Python 3.7, dicts preserve insertion order. So one use case of list(newdict) might be to select keys from a dictionary by its index or slice it (not how it's "supposed" to be used but certainly a possible question). Instead of converting to a list, use islice from the built-in itertools module, which is much more efficient since converting the keys into a list just to throw away most of it is very wasteful. For example, to select the second key in newdict:
from itertools import islice
next(islice(newdict, 1, 2))
or to slice the second to fifth key:
list(islice(newdict, 1, 6))
For large dicts, it's thousands of times faster than list(newdict)[1] etc.
This question already has answers here:
How do I initialize a dictionary of empty lists in Python?
(7 answers)
Closed 2 years ago.
I came across this behavior that surprised me in Python 2.6 and 3.2:
>>> xs = dict.fromkeys(range(2), [])
>>> xs
{0: [], 1: []}
>>> xs[0].append(1)
>>> xs
{0: [1], 1: [1]}
However, dict comprehensions in 3.2 show a more polite demeanor:
>>> xs = {i:[] for i in range(2)}
>>> xs
{0: [], 1: []}
>>> xs[0].append(1)
>>> xs
{0: [1], 1: []}
>>>
Why does fromkeys behave like that?
Your Python 2.6 example is equivalent to the following, which may help to clarify:
>>> a = []
>>> xs = dict.fromkeys(range(2), a)
Each entry in the resulting dictionary will have a reference to the same object. The effects of mutating that object will be visible through every dict entry, as you've seen, because it's one object.
>>> xs[0] is a and xs[1] is a
True
Use a dict comprehension, or if you're stuck on Python 2.6 or older and you don't have dictionary comprehensions, you can get the dict comprehension behavior by using dict() with a generator expression:
xs = dict((i, []) for i in range(2))
In the first version, you use the same empty list object as the value for both keys, so if you change one, you change the other, too.
Look at this:
>>> empty = []
>>> d = dict.fromkeys(range(2), empty)
>>> d
{0: [], 1: []}
>>> empty.append(1) # same as d[0].append(1) because d[0] references empty!
>>> d
{0: [1], 1: [1]}
In the second version, a new empty list object is created in every iteration of the dict comprehension, so both are independent from each other.
As to "why" fromkeys() works like that - well, it would be surprising if it didn't work like that. fromkeys(iterable, value) constructs a new dict with keys from iterable that all have the value value. If that value is a mutable object, and you change that object, what else could you reasonably expect to happen?
To answer the actual question being asked: fromkeys behaves like that because there is no other reasonable choice. It is not reasonable (or even possible) to have fromkeys decide whether or not your argument is mutable and make new copies every time. In some cases it doesn't make sense, and in others it's just impossible.
The second argument you pass in is therefore just a reference, and is copied as such. An assignment of [] in Python means "a single reference to a new list", not "make a new list every time I access this variable". The alternative would be to pass in a function that generates new instances, which is the functionality that dict comprehensions supply for you.
Here are some options for creating multiple actual copies of a mutable container:
As you mention in the question, dict comprehensions allow you to execute an arbitrary statement for each element:
d = {k: [] for k in range(2)}
The important thing here is that this is equivalent to putting the assignment k = [] in a for loop. Each iteration creates a new list and assigns it to a value.
Use the form of the dict constructor suggested by #Andrew Clark:
d = dict((k, []) for k in range(2))
This creates a generator which again makes the assignment of a new list to each key-value pair when it is executed.
Use a collections.defaultdict instead of a regular dict:
d = collections.defaultdict(list)
This option is a little different from the others. Instead of creating the new list references up front, defaultdict will call list every time you access a key that's not already there. You can there fore add the keys as lazily as you want, which can be very convenient sometimes:
for k in range(2):
d[k].append(42)
Since you've set up the factory for new elements, this will actually behave exactly as you expected fromkeys to behave in the original question.
Use dict.setdefault when you access potentially new keys. This does something similar to what defaultdict does, but it has the advantage of being more controlled, in the sense that only the access you want to create new keys actually creates them:
d = {}
for k in range(2):
d.setdefault(k, []).append(42)
The disadvantage is that a new empty list object gets created every time you call the function, even if it never gets assigned to a value. This is not a huge problem, but it could add up if you call it frequently and/or your container is not as simple as list.