How to iterate over a dictionary in Python

Dictionary in Python

In Python, the dictionary is an unordered dataset i.e., a collection of key-value pairs. Dictionary is also known as an associative array, hashmap, or simply a dict. Dicionary is mutable, which means that it allows us to make amends in it while execution. The keys stored in a dictionary must be unique, and the values stored in the dictionary can be of any data type. Dictionary stores data in such a way that it allows us to perform different operations, e.g., insertion and deletion in an efficient way.

Example

Let's have a look at the following example to understand dictionaries better:

data = {"name": "educative",
"answer name": "How To Iterate Over a Dictionary in Python",
"contributor name": "Nimra Mubashir"
}

In the above example, we have a dictionary named the data. This dictionary consists of the following keys which are name, answer name, and contributor name with educative, How To Iterate Over a Dictionary in Python, and Nimra Mubashir as their corresponding values.

Iterate over a dictionary

In Python, we have multiple ways to iterate over a dictionary. Some of these include, but are not limited to the following:

  • Using the for loop to iterate over keys

  • Using the for loop and the items method to iterate over keys and values.

  • Using the for loop and the values method to iterate over the values.

Code

Let's have a look at the following example to understand how we can iterate over the dictionary. The widget below contains the data dictionary containing key1, key2, and key3 as the keys and value1, value2, and value3 as the values and iterate over them using the above-mentioned methods.

data = { "key1": "value1",
"key2": "value2",
"key3": "value3"
}
def iterate_using_for_loop(my_dict):
for key in my_dict:
print("Key:", key)
def iterate_using_items_method(my_dict):
for key, value in my_dict.items():
print(f"Key: {key}, Value:", value)
def iterate_using_values_method(my_dict):
for value in my_dict.values():
print("Value:",value)
print("Iterating over the keys of the dictionary:")
iterate_using_for_loop(data)
print (" ***************** ")
print("Iterating over the keys and values of the dictionary:")
iterate_using_items_method(data)
print (" ***************** ")
print("Iterating over the values of the dictionary:")
iterate_using_values_method(data)

Explanation

The explanation of the above code is provided below:

  1. Lines 14: We're creating a dictionary named data containing the key-value pairs.

  2. Lines 6,10 and 14: We're creating the respective functions to depict different methods to iterate over a dictionary. These functions take the my_dict dictionary as a parameter.

  3. Lines 7,11 and 15: We're iterating over the dictionary using the for loop. When we iterate over a dictionary using a single for loop, it returns us the keys of the dictionary like in line 7. When we use the items() method, it returns us both the keys as well as the values of the dictionary like in line 11. When we iterate using a for loop and the values method, it returns us the values of the dictionary like in line 15.

  4. Lines 8,12 and 16: We're printing the keys, and values respectively.

  5. Lines 18–25: We're calling the respective functions and printing the respective statements.

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