A dictionary in Python is really just a way of storing data that can be referenced by a key. Keys can be strings, numbers, or even tuples. If you’re new to dictionaries in Python, then you might be wondering how to add a key/value pair to an existing dictionary. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to do. Here’s what you need to know about how to append to a dictionary in python.
The significance of a dictionary in Python
A dictionary is a mutable data type in Python that stores mappings between distinct keys and values. Dictionaries are also sometimes called associative arrays or hash tables.
Dictionaries have no concept of order among elements. It is incorrect to say that the elements are “out of order” and simply unordered. Other than via creating a new dictionary with the same contents in a different order, there is no way to change the order of dictionary items.
As you can see that the dictionary is a key-to-value pair, which means that you can store data in the form of keys and values. There are some important points that you need to keep in mind while working with dictionaries.
How to Add Key/Value Pair
The first thing you need to do is create the key that you want to use. This can be done by using the curly braces {}.
Once you’ve created the key, you can assign a value to it by using the equal sign (=). For example, let’s say you have a dictionary called my_dict, and you want to add a new key/value pair for the city of Chicago.
The code would look like this: my_dict[“city”] = “Chicago”
As you can see, we’ve created a new key called “city” and assigned the value “Chicago” to it. Pretty simple, right? But what if you want to add multiple key/value pairs at once?
How To add multiple keys:
The good news is that you can actually add multiple key/value pairs to a dictionary by separating each key/value pair with a comma. For example, let’s say we want to add two more cities to our dictionary: New York and Los Angeles.
The code would look like this:
my_dict[“city”] = “Chicago”, “New York”, “Los Angeles”
As you can see, we’ve simply added each city on its own line and separated each key/value pair with a comma. Easy peasy! But what if you want to update an existing value in your dictionary?
Tips for updating the values:
To update an existing value in your dictionary, simply use the same syntax as before but with the new value that you want to assign. For example, let’s say we want to update the value for the key “city” from Chicago to Detroit.
This time, the code will be:
my_dict[“city”] = “Detroit”
Conclusion:
As you can see, adding new key/value pairs or updating existing ones is pretty simple in Python dictionaries. Just remember to separate each key/value pair with a comma if you’re adding multiple items at once. And that’s all there is to it!