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Python

Posted by Wilfried Allico
Wilfried Allico
2,495 Points

What do they mean by keys are sorted in Python?

What do they mean by keys are not sorted??

2 Answers

Cooper Runstein
Cooper Runstein
11,851 Points
Cooper Runstein
Cooper Runstein
11,851 Points

This means that if you iterate through a dictionary (or a set) you won't get items out in the order they went in. If I create a dictionary:

dict = {
    'key1': 1,
    'key2': 2,
    'key3': 3
}

And I iterate through it:

for key, values in dict.items():
    print(key)

I might get:

key2
key1
key3

or I might get

key1
key3
key2

But I can't rely on the order the items are going to come out when I run through them, I just know that all of them will come up at some point in the iteration.

Dave StSomeWhere
Dave StSomeWhere
19,870 Points
Dave StSomeWhere
Dave StSomeWhere
19,870 Points

When using key value pairs in python you can never expect a specific order when processing.

So when executing the following code:

dict_example = {
    'key1': 'value1',
    'key2': 'value2',
    'key3': 'value3',
    'key4': 'value4',
    'key5': 'value5'
    }

#  when looping you cannot expect a specific order or sort them - because you access them by key
for key, value in dict_example.items():
    print('key is -->' + key)
    print('value is -->' + value)

#  access by key
print(dict_example['key3'])

hope that helps