Let's dive into Python Dictionaries for beginners:
What are Python Dictionaries?
Imagine a regular dictionary where you look up words and their definitions. Python dictionaries work similarly, but they store information in key-value pairs.
Keys: Think of these as unique labels or identifiers for your information. Keys must be immutable (unchangeable) data types like strings, numbers, or tuples.
Values: This is the actual data you want to store. Values can be any data type, including strings, numbers, lists, or even other dictionaries (we'll get to that later).
Creating Dictionaries:
There are two main ways to create dictionaries in Python:
Curly braces: This is the most common way. You place your key-value pairs enclosed in curly braces {}, separated by commas. Here's an example:
Python
person = {"name": "Alice", "age": 30, "city": "New York"}
Use code with caution.
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In this example, "name", "age", and "city" are the keys, and "Alice", 30, and "New York" are the corresponding values.
dict() function: This is a built-in function that allows you to create dictionaries explicitly. You can pass key-value pairs as arguments or use keyword arguments. Here's an example: