Dictionaries

What You’ll Learn

You’ll learn how to use dictionaries to map keys to values, similar to objects in JavaScript.

What is a Dictionary?

Dictionaries are used to store data values in key:value pairs. They are written with curly brackets {}, and have keys and values.

user = {
  "name": "John",
  "age": 30,
  "role": "Admin"
}
print(user)

Accessing Items

You can access the items of a dictionary by referring to its key name, inside square brackets.

print(user["name"]) # John

Or use the .get() method, which is safer because it returns None (instead of throwing an error) if the key doesn’t exist:

print(user.get("age")) # 30
print(user.get("email")) # None

Changing and Adding Items

You can change the value of a specific item by referring to its key name. If the key doesn’t exist, it will be added.

# Update existing
user["age"] = 31

# Add new
user["email"] = "john@example.com"