Swapping keys and values in a dictionary in Python can be done using the zip
function and a dictionary comprehension.
Let’s discuss various ways of swapping the keys and values in Python Dictionary. Attention geek! Strengthen your foundations with the Python Programming Foundation Course and learn the basics.
Method#1 (Does not work when there are multiple same values):
One naive solution may be something like just swapping the key and values respectively.
Example:
Input: {‘A’: 67, ‘B’: 23, ‘C’: 45, ‘D’: 56, ‘E’: 12, ‘F’: 69, ‘G’: 67, ‘H’: 23} Output: {67: ‘G’, 69: ‘F’, 23: ‘H’, 56: ‘D’, 12: ‘E’, 45: ‘C’}
# Python3 code to demonstrate # swap of key and value # initializing dictionary old_dict = {'A': 67, 'B': 23, 'C': 45, 'D': 56, 'E': 12, 'F': 69, 'G': 67, 'H': 23} new_dict = dict([(value, key) for key, value in old_dict.items()]) # Printing original dictionary print ("Original dictionary is : ") print(old_dict) print() # Printing new dictionary after swapping keys and values print ("Dictionary after swapping is : ") print("keys: values") for i in new_dict: print(i, " : ", new_dict[i])
Output
Original dictionary is : {'D': 56, 'E': 12, 'C': 45, 'A': 67, 'F': 69, 'H': 23, 'B': 23, 'G': 67} Dictionary after swapping is : keys: values 67 : G 69 : F 23 : B 56 : D 12 : E 45 : C
But there is a problem in this approach. In our example we have multiple keys with same values i.e. (‘A’, 67) and (‘G’, 67) and the other keys having same values is (‘B’, 23) and (‘H’, 23).
But in the result we obtained only one key from each.
i.e we obtained only (‘G’, 67) and (‘B’, 23).
So, here’s another approach to deal with this problem:
Method#2 (Handles multiple same values):
In this approach we will check if value is already present or not. If present then just append it to the list.
Example:
Input: {‘A’: 67, ‘B’: 23, ‘C’: 45, ‘E’: 12, ‘F’: 69, ‘G’: 67, ‘H’: 23} Output: {45: [‘C’], 67: [‘A’, ‘G’], 12: [‘E’], 69: [‘F’], 23: [‘B’, ‘H’]}
# Python3 code to demonstrate # swap of key and value # initializing dictionary old_dict = {'A': 67, 'B': 23, 'C': 45, 'E': 12, 'F': 69, 'G': 67, 'H': 23} # Printing original dictionary print ("Original dictionary is : ") print(old_dict) print() new_dict = {} for key, value in old_dict.items(): if value in new_dict: new_dict[value].append(key) else: new_dict[value]=[key] # Printing new dictionary after swapping # keys and values print ("Dictionary after swapping is : ") print("keys: values") for i in new_dict: print(i, " :", new_dict[i])
Output
Original dictionary is : {'F': 69, 'G': 67, 'H': 23, 'A': 67, 'C': 45, 'B': 23, 'E': 12} Dictionary after swapping is : keys: values 45 : ['C'] 67 : ['G', 'A'] 12 : ['E'] 69 : ['F'] 23 : ['H', 'B']