Append list in dictionary python

This article will discuss how to add or append new key-value pairs to a dictionary or update existing keys’ values.

Table of Contents

We can add/append key-value pairs to a dictionary in python either by using the [] operator or the update function. Let’s first have an overview of the update() function,

Overview of dict.update()

Python dictionary provides a member function update() to add a new key-value pair to the diction or to update the value of a key i.e.

Parameters:

• sequence: An iterable sequence of key-value pairs.
  • It can be a list of tuples or another dictionary of key-value pairs.

Returns:

For each key-value pair in the sequence, it will add the given key-value pair in the dictionary and if key already exists, it will update its value. We can use this function to add new key-value pairs in the dictionary or updating the existing ones.

Checkout complete tutorial on dict.update() function.

Let’s see some examples,

Add / Append a new key-value pair to a dictionary in Python

We can add a new key-value pair to a dictionary either using the update() function or [] operator. Let’s look at them one by one,

Add / Append a new key value pair to a dictionary using update() function

To add a new key-value in the dictionary, we can wrap the pair in a new dictionary and pass it to the update() function as an argument,

Output

It added the new key-value pair in the dictionary. If the key already existed in the dictionary, then it would have updated its value.
If the key is a string you can directly add without curly braces i.e.

Output:

Add / Append a new key-value pair to a dictionary using [] operator

We add a new key and value to the dictionary by passing the key in the subscript operator ( [] ) and then assigning value to it. For example,

Output:

It added a new key ‘how’ to the dictionary with value 9.

Add to python dictionary if key does not exist

Both the subscript operator [] and update() function works in the same way. If the key already exists in the dictionary, then these will update its value. But sometimes we don’t want to update the value of an existing key. We want to add a new key-value pair to the dictionary, only if the key does not exist.

We have created a function that will add the key-value pair to the dictionary only if the key does not exist in the dictionary. Check out this example,

Output:

As key ‘at’ already exists in the dictionary, therefore this function did not added the key-value pair to the dictionary,

Now let’s call this function with a new pair,

Output:

As key ‘how’ was not present in the dictionary, so this function added the key-value pair to the dictionary.

Add / Append values to an existing key to a dictionary in python

Suppose you don’t want to replace the value of an existing key in the dictionary. Instead, we want to append a new value to the current values of a key. Let’s see how to do that,

Output:

It added a new value, 21, to the existing values of key ‘at’.

How did it work?

We will check if the key already exists in the dictionary or not,

• If the key does not exist, then add the new key-value pair.
• If the key already exists, then check if its value is of type list or not,
  • If its value is list object and then add new value to it.
  • If the existing value is not a list, then add the current value to a new list and then append the new value to the list. Then replace the value of the existing key with the new list.

Let’s check out some other examples of appending a new value to the existing values of a key in a dictionary,

Example 1:

Output:

Example 2:

Output:

Updating the value of existing key in a dictionary

If we call the update() function with a key/value and key already exists in the dictionary, then its value will be updated by the new value, i.e., Key ‘Hello’ already exist in the dictionary,

Output:

The value of the key ‘hello’ is updated to 99.

Check out another example,

Output:

Append multiple key value pair in dictionary

As update() accepts an iterable sequence of key-value pairs, so we can pass a dictionary or list of tuples of new key-value pairs to update(). It will all add the given key-value pairs in the dictionary; if any key already exists then, it will update its value.

Adding a list of tuples (key-value pairs) in the dictionary

Output:

Adding a dictionary to another dictionary

Suppose we have two dictionaries dict1 and dict2. Let’s add the contents of dict2 in dict1 i.e.

Output:

Add items to a dictionary in a loop

Suppose we have a list of keys, and we want to add these keys to the dictionary with value 1 to n. We can do that by adding items to a dictionary in a loop,

Output:

Add list as a value to a dictionary in python

You can add a list as a value to a key in the dictionary,

Output:

Learn More,

Summary:

We can add / append new key-value pairs to a dictionary using update() function and [] operator. We can also append new values to existing values for a key or replace the values of existing keys using the same subscript operator and update() function.

This chapter describes some things you’ve learned about already in more detail, and adds some new things as well.

The list data type has some more methods. Here are all of the methods of list objects:

Add an item to the end of the list. Equivalent to a[len(a):] = [x].

Extend the list by appending all the items from the iterable. Equivalent to a[len(a):] = iterable.

Insert an item at a given position. The first argument is the index of the element before which to insert, so a.insert(0, x) inserts at the front of the list, and a.insert(len(a), x) is equivalent to a.append(x).

Remove the first item from the list whose value is equal to x. It raises a ValueError if there is no such item.

Remove the item at the given position in the list, and return it. If no index is specified, a.pop() removes and returns the last item in the list. (The square brackets around the i in the method signature denote that the parameter is optional, not that you should type square brackets at that position. You will see this notation frequently in the Python Library Reference.)

Remove all items from the list. Equivalent to del a[:].

Return zero-based index in the list of the first item whose value is equal to x. Raises a ValueError if there is no such item.

The optional arguments start and end are interpreted as in the slice notation and are used to limit the search to a particular subsequence of the list. The returned index is computed relative to the beginning of the full sequence rather than the start argument.

Return the number of times x appears in the list.

Sort the items of the list in place (the arguments can be used for sort customization, see sorted() for their explanation).

Reverse the elements of the list in place.

Return a shallow copy of the list. Equivalent to a[:].

An example that uses most of the list methods:

>>> fruits = ['orange', 'apple', 'pear', 'banana', 'kiwi', 'apple', 'banana'] >>> fruits.count('apple') 2 >>> fruits.count('tangerine') 0 >>> fruits.index('banana') 3 >>> fruits.index('banana', 4) # Find next banana starting a position 4 6 >>> fruits.reverse() >>> fruits ['banana', 'apple', 'kiwi', 'banana', 'pear', 'apple', 'orange'] >>> fruits.append('grape') >>> fruits ['banana', 'apple', 'kiwi', 'banana', 'pear', 'apple', 'orange', 'grape'] >>> fruits.sort() >>> fruits ['apple', 'apple', 'banana', 'banana', 'grape', 'kiwi', 'orange', 'pear'] >>> fruits.pop() 'pear'

You might have noticed that methods like insert, remove or sort that only modify the list have no return value printed – they return the default None. 1 This is a design principle for all mutable data structures in Python.

Another thing you might notice is that not all data can be sorted or compared. For instance, [None, 'hello', 10] doesn’t sort because integers can’t be compared to strings and None can’t be compared to other types. Also, there are some types that don’t have a defined ordering relation. For example, 3+4j < 5+7j isn’t a valid comparison.

The list methods make it very easy to use a list as a stack, where the last element added is the first element retrieved (“last-in, first-out”). To add an item to the top of the stack, use append(). To retrieve an item from the top of the stack, use pop() without an explicit index. For example:

>>> stack = [3, 4, 5] >>> stack.append(6) >>> stack.append(7) >>> stack [3, 4, 5, 6, 7] >>> stack.pop() 7 >>> stack [3, 4, 5, 6] >>> stack.pop() 6 >>> stack.pop() 5 >>> stack [3, 4]

It is also possible to use a list as a queue, where the first element added is the first element retrieved (“first-in, first-out”); however, lists are not efficient for this purpose. While appends and pops from the end of list are fast, doing inserts or pops from the beginning of a list is slow (because all of the other elements have to be shifted by one).

To implement a queue, use collections.deque which was designed to have fast appends and pops from both ends. For example:

>>> from collections import deque >>> queue = deque(["Eric", "John", "Michael"]) >>> queue.append("Terry") # Terry arrives >>> queue.append("Graham") # Graham arrives >>> queue.popleft() # The first to arrive now leaves 'Eric' >>> queue.popleft() # The second to arrive now leaves 'John' >>> queue # Remaining queue in order of arrival deque(['Michael', 'Terry', 'Graham'])

List comprehensions provide a concise way to create lists. Common applications are to make new lists where each element is the result of some operations applied to each member of another sequence or iterable, or to create a subsequence of those elements that satisfy a certain condition.

For example, assume we want to create a list of squares, like:

>>> squares = [] >>> for x in range(10): ... squares.append(x**2) ... >>> squares [0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81]

Note that this creates (or overwrites) a variable named x that still exists after the loop completes. We can calculate the list of squares without any side effects using:

squares = list(map(lambda x: x**2, range(10)))

or, equivalently:

squares = [x**2 for x in range(10)]

which is more concise and readable.

A list comprehension consists of brackets containing an expression followed by a for clause, then zero or more for or if clauses. The result will be a new list resulting from evaluating the expression in the context of the for and if clauses which follow it. For example, this listcomp combines the elements of two lists if they are not equal:

>>> [(x, y) for x in [1,2,3] for y in [3,1,4] if x != y] [(1, 3), (1, 4), (2, 3), (2, 1), (2, 4), (3, 1), (3, 4)]

and it’s equivalent to:

>>> combs = [] >>> for x in [1,2,3]: ... for y in [3,1,4]: ... if x != y: ... combs.append((x, y)) ... >>> combs [(1, 3), (1, 4), (2, 3), (2, 1), (2, 4), (3, 1), (3, 4)]

Note how the order of the for and if statements is the same in both these snippets.

If the expression is a tuple (e.g. the (x, y) in the previous example), it must be parenthesized.

>>> vec = [-4, -2, 0, 2, 4] >>> # create a new list with the values doubled >>> [x*2 for x in vec] [-8, -4, 0, 4, 8] >>> # filter the list to exclude negative numbers >>> [x for x in vec if x >= 0] [0, 2, 4] >>> # apply a function to all the elements >>> [abs(x) for x in vec] [4, 2, 0, 2, 4] >>> # call a method on each element >>> freshfruit = [' banana', ' loganberry ', 'passion fruit '] >>> [weapon.strip() for weapon in freshfruit] ['banana', 'loganberry', 'passion fruit'] >>> # create a list of 2-tuples like (number, square) >>> [(x, x**2) for x in range(6)] [(0, 0), (1, 1), (2, 4), (3, 9), (4, 16), (5, 25)] >>> # the tuple must be parenthesized, otherwise an error is raised >>> [x, x**2 for x in range(6)] File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> [x, x**2 for x in range(6)] ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax >>> # flatten a list using a listcomp with two 'for' >>> vec = [[1,2,3], [4,5,6], [7,8,9]] >>> [num for elem in vec for num in elem] [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

List comprehensions can contain complex expressions and nested functions:

>>> from math import pi >>> [str(round(pi, i)) for i in range(1, 6)] ['3.1', '3.14', '3.142', '3.1416', '3.14159']

The initial expression in a list comprehension can be any arbitrary expression, including another list comprehension.

Consider the following example of a 3x4 matrix implemented as a list of 3 lists of length 4:

>>> matrix = [ ... [1, 2, 3, 4], ... [5, 6, 7, 8], ... [9, 10, 11, 12], ... ]

The following list comprehension will transpose rows and columns:

>>> [[row[i] for row in matrix] for i in range(4)] [[1, 5, 9], [2, 6, 10], [3, 7, 11], [4, 8, 12]]

As we saw in the previous section, the nested listcomp is evaluated in the context of the for that follows it, so this example is equivalent to:

>>> transposed = [] >>> for i in range(4): ... transposed.append([row[i] for row in matrix]) ... >>> transposed [[1, 5, 9], [2, 6, 10], [3, 7, 11], [4, 8, 12]]

which, in turn, is the same as:

>>> transposed = [] >>> for i in range(4): ... # the following 3 lines implement the nested listcomp ... transposed_row = [] ... for row in matrix: ... transposed_row.append(row[i]) ... transposed.append(transposed_row) ... >>> transposed [[1, 5, 9], [2, 6, 10], [3, 7, 11], [4, 8, 12]]

In the real world, you should prefer built-in functions to complex flow statements. The zip() function would do a great job for this use case:

>>> list(zip(*matrix)) [(1, 5, 9), (2, 6, 10), (3, 7, 11), (4, 8, 12)]

See Unpacking Argument Lists for details on the asterisk in this line.

There is a way to remove an item from a list given its index instead of its value: the del statement. This differs from the pop() method which returns a value. The del statement can also be used to remove slices from a list or clear the entire list (which we did earlier by assignment of an empty list to the slice). For example:

>>> a = [-1, 1, 66.25, 333, 333, 1234.5] >>> del a[0] >>> a [1, 66.25, 333, 333, 1234.5] >>> del a[2:4] >>> a [1, 66.25, 1234.5] >>> del a[:] >>> a []

del can also be used to delete entire variables:

Referencing the name a hereafter is an error (at least until another value is assigned to it). We’ll find other uses for del later.

We saw that lists and strings have many common properties, such as indexing and slicing operations. They are two examples of sequence data types (see Sequence Types — list, tuple, range). Since Python is an evolving language, other sequence data types may be added. There is also another standard sequence data type: the tuple.

A tuple consists of a number of values separated by commas, for instance:

>>> t = 12345, 54321, 'hello!' >>> t[0] 12345 >>> t (12345, 54321, 'hello!') >>> # Tuples may be nested: ... u = t, (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) >>> u ((12345, 54321, 'hello!'), (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)) >>> # Tuples are immutable: ... t[0] = 88888 Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> TypeError: 'tuple' object does not support item assignment >>> # but they can contain mutable objects: ... v = ([1, 2, 3], [3, 2, 1]) >>> v ([1, 2, 3], [3, 2, 1])

As you see, on output tuples are always enclosed in parentheses, so that nested tuples are interpreted correctly; they may be input with or without surrounding parentheses, although often parentheses are necessary anyway (if the tuple is part of a larger expression). It is not possible to assign to the individual items of a tuple, however it is possible to create tuples which contain mutable objects, such as lists.

Though tuples may seem similar to lists, they are often used in different situations and for different purposes. Tuples are immutable, and usually contain a heterogeneous sequence of elements that are accessed via unpacking (see later in this section) or indexing (or even by attribute in the case of namedtuples). Lists are mutable, and their elements are usually homogeneous and are accessed by iterating over the list.

A special problem is the construction of tuples containing 0 or 1 items: the syntax has some extra quirks to accommodate these. Empty tuples are constructed by an empty pair of parentheses; a tuple with one item is constructed by following a value with a comma (it is not sufficient to enclose a single value in parentheses). Ugly, but effective. For example:

>>> empty = () >>> singleton = 'hello', # <-- note trailing comma >>> len(empty) 0 >>> len(singleton) 1 >>> singleton ('hello',)

The statement t = 12345, 54321, 'hello!' is an example of tuple packing: the values 12345, 54321 and 'hello!' are packed together in a tuple. The reverse operation is also possible:

This is called, appropriately enough, sequence unpacking and works for any sequence on the right-hand side. Sequence unpacking requires that there are as many variables on the left side of the equals sign as there are elements in the sequence. Note that multiple assignment is really just a combination of tuple packing and sequence unpacking.

Python also includes a data type for sets. A set is an unordered collection with no duplicate elements. Basic uses include membership testing and eliminating duplicate entries. Set objects also support mathematical operations like union, intersection, difference, and symmetric difference.

Curly braces or the set() function can be used to create sets. Note: to create an empty set you have to use set(), not {}; the latter creates an empty dictionary, a data structure that we discuss in the next section.

Here is a brief demonstration:

>>> basket = {'apple', 'orange', 'apple', 'pear', 'orange', 'banana'} >>> print(basket) # show that duplicates have been removed {'orange', 'banana', 'pear', 'apple'} >>> 'orange' in basket # fast membership testing True >>> 'crabgrass' in basket False >>> # Demonstrate set operations on unique letters from two words ... >>> a = set('abracadabra') >>> b = set('alacazam') >>> a # unique letters in a {'a', 'r', 'b', 'c', 'd'} >>> a - b # letters in a but not in b {'r', 'd', 'b'} >>> a | b # letters in a or b or both {'a', 'c', 'r', 'd', 'b', 'm', 'z', 'l'} >>> a & b # letters in both a and b {'a', 'c'} >>> a ^ b # letters in a or b but not both {'r', 'd', 'b', 'm', 'z', 'l'}

Similarly to list comprehensions, set comprehensions are also supported:

>>> a = {x for x in 'abracadabra' if x not in 'abc'} >>> a {'r', 'd'}

Another useful data type built into Python is the dictionary (see Mapping Types — dict). Dictionaries are sometimes found in other languages as “associative memories” or “associative arrays”. Unlike sequences, which are indexed by a range of numbers, dictionaries are indexed by keys, which can be any immutable type; strings and numbers can always be keys. Tuples can be used as keys if they contain only strings, numbers, or tuples; if a tuple contains any mutable object either directly or indirectly, it cannot be used as a key. You can’t use lists as keys, since lists can be modified in place using index assignments, slice assignments, or methods like append() and extend().

It is best to think of a dictionary as a set of key: value pairs, with the requirement that the keys are unique (within one dictionary). A pair of braces creates an empty dictionary: {}. Placing a comma-separated list of key:value pairs within the braces adds initial key:value pairs to the dictionary; this is also the way dictionaries are written on output.

The main operations on a dictionary are storing a value with some key and extracting the value given the key. It is also possible to delete a key:value pair with del. If you store using a key that is already in use, the old value associated with that key is forgotten. It is an error to extract a value using a non-existent key.

Performing list(d) on a dictionary returns a list of all the keys used in the dictionary, in insertion order (if you want it sorted, just use sorted(d) instead). To check whether a single key is in the dictionary, use the in keyword.

Here is a small example using a dictionary:

>>> tel = {'jack': 4098, 'sape': 4139} >>> tel['guido'] = 4127 >>> tel {'jack': 4098, 'sape': 4139, 'guido': 4127} >>> tel['jack'] 4098 >>> del tel['sape'] >>> tel['irv'] = 4127 >>> tel {'jack': 4098, 'guido': 4127, 'irv': 4127} >>> list(tel) ['jack', 'guido', 'irv'] >>> sorted(tel) ['guido', 'irv', 'jack'] >>> 'guido' in tel True >>> 'jack' not in tel False

The dict() constructor builds dictionaries directly from sequences of key-value pairs:

>>> dict([('sape', 4139), ('guido', 4127), ('jack', 4098)]) {'sape': 4139, 'guido': 4127, 'jack': 4098}

In addition, dict comprehensions can be used to create dictionaries from arbitrary key and value expressions:

>>> {x: x**2 for x in (2, 4, 6)} {2: 4, 4: 16, 6: 36}

When the keys are simple strings, it is sometimes easier to specify pairs using keyword arguments:

>>> dict(sape=4139, guido=4127, jack=4098) {'sape': 4139, 'guido': 4127, 'jack': 4098}

When looping through dictionaries, the key and corresponding value can be retrieved at the same time using the items() method.

>>> knights = {'gallahad': 'the pure', 'robin': 'the brave'} >>> for k, v in knights.items(): ... print(k, v) ... gallahad the pure robin the brave

When looping through a sequence, the position index and corresponding value can be retrieved at the same time using the enumerate() function.

>>> for i, v in enumerate(['tic', 'tac', 'toe']): ... print(i, v) ... 0 tic 1 tac 2 toe

To loop over two or more sequences at the same time, the entries can be paired with the zip() function.

>>> questions = ['name', 'quest', 'favorite color'] >>> answers = ['lancelot', 'the holy grail', 'blue'] >>> for q, a in zip(questions, answers): ... print('What is your {0}? It is {1}.'.format(q, a)) ... What is your name? It is lancelot. What is your quest? It is the holy grail. What is your favorite color? It is blue.

To loop over a sequence in reverse, first specify the sequence in a forward direction and then call the reversed() function.

>>> for i in reversed(range(1, 10, 2)): ... print(i) ... 9 7 5 3 1

To loop over a sequence in sorted order, use the sorted() function which returns a new sorted list while leaving the source unaltered.

>>> basket = ['apple', 'orange', 'apple', 'pear', 'orange', 'banana'] >>> for i in sorted(basket): ... print(i) ... apple apple banana orange orange pear

Using set() on a sequence eliminates duplicate elements. The use of sorted() in combination with set() over a sequence is an idiomatic way to loop over unique elements of the sequence in sorted order.

>>> basket = ['apple', 'orange', 'apple', 'pear', 'orange', 'banana'] >>> for f in sorted(set(basket)): ... print(f) ... apple banana orange pear

It is sometimes tempting to change a list while you are looping over it; however, it is often simpler and safer to create a new list instead.

>>> import math >>> raw_data = [56.2, float('NaN'), 51.7, 55.3, 52.5, float('NaN'), 47.8] >>> filtered_data = [] >>> for value in raw_data: ... if not math.isnan(value): ... filtered_data.append(value) ... >>> filtered_data [56.2, 51.7, 55.3, 52.5, 47.8]

The conditions used in while and if statements can contain any operators, not just comparisons.

The comparison operators in and not in are membership tests that determine whether a value is in (or not in) a container. The operators is and is not compare whether two objects are really the same object. All comparison operators have the same priority, which is lower than that of all numerical operators.

Comparisons can be chained. For example, a < b == c tests whether a is less than b and moreover b equals c.

Comparisons may be combined using the Boolean operators and and or, and the outcome of a comparison (or of any other Boolean expression) may be negated with not. These have lower priorities than comparison operators; between them, not has the highest priority and or the lowest, so that A and not B or C is equivalent to (A and (not B)) or C. As always, parentheses can be used to express the desired composition.

The Boolean operators and and or are so-called short-circuit operators: their arguments are evaluated from left to right, and evaluation stops as soon as the outcome is determined. For example, if A and C are true but B is false, A and B and C does not evaluate the expression C. When used as a general value and not as a Boolean, the return value of a short-circuit operator is the last evaluated argument.

It is possible to assign the result of a comparison or other Boolean expression to a variable. For example,

>>> string1, string2, string3 = '', 'Trondheim', 'Hammer Dance' >>> non_null = string1 or string2 or string3 >>> non_null 'Trondheim'

Note that in Python, unlike C, assignment inside expressions must be done explicitly with the walrus operator :=. This avoids a common class of problems encountered in C programs: typing = in an expression when == was intended.

Sequence objects typically may be compared to other objects with the same sequence type. The comparison uses lexicographical ordering: first the first two items are compared, and if they differ this determines the outcome of the comparison; if they are equal, the next two items are compared, and so on, until either sequence is exhausted. If two items to be compared are themselves sequences of the same type, the lexicographical comparison is carried out recursively. If all items of two sequences compare equal, the sequences are considered equal. If one sequence is an initial sub-sequence of the other, the shorter sequence is the smaller (lesser) one. Lexicographical ordering for strings uses the Unicode code point number to order individual characters. Some examples of comparisons between sequences of the same type:

(1, 2, 3) < (1, 2, 4) [1, 2, 3] < [1, 2, 4] 'ABC' < 'C' < 'Pascal' < 'Python' (1, 2, 3, 4) < (1, 2, 4) (1, 2) < (1, 2, -1) (1, 2, 3) == (1.0, 2.0, 3.0) (1, 2, ('aa', 'ab')) < (1, 2, ('abc', 'a'), 4)

Note that comparing objects of different types with < or > is legal provided that the objects have appropriate comparison methods. For example, mixed numeric types are compared according to their numeric value, so 0 equals 0.0, etc. Otherwise, rather than providing an arbitrary ordering, the interpreter will raise a TypeError exception.

Footnotes