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Python Mastery: 100 Tips and Tricks for Efficient Use of Python Dictionaries

btd
10 min readDec 17, 2023

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In Python, a dictionary is a built-in data type that represents an unordered collection of key-value pairs. It is sometimes referred to as an associative array or a hash map in other programming languages. Dictionaries are defined using curly braces {}, and each key-value pair is separated by a colon :.

my_dict = {'key1': 'value1', 'key2': 'value2', 'key3': 'value3'}

In this example, 'key1', 'key2', and 'key3' are keys, and 'value1', 'value2', and 'value3' are their corresponding values.

Key features of dictionaries in Python:

  1. Unordered: The order of items in a dictionary is not guaranteed. Starting from Python 3.7, dictionaries maintain the insertion order of items.
  2. Mutable: Dictionaries can be modified after creation. You can add, modify, or remove key-value pairs.
  3. Dynamic: Dictionaries can grow or shrink in size as needed.
  4. Flexible Key Types: Keys can be of almost any data type (strings, numbers, tuples), but they must be immutable.
  5. Unique Keys: Keys in a dictionary must be unique. If you try to assign a new value to an existing key, it will overwrite the old value.
  6. Access by Key: Values in a dictionary are…

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