Q: how to scan every element of a dictionary ?

[Jan Dries]

Hwanjo Yu wrote:
> Doesn't the dictionary data structure support an enumeration operator to
> scan every element of it ?

A dictionary has 3 functions that convert the dictionary to a list that
can be enumerated:

Given :

    my_dict = { ..... }

you can write:

    my_dict.items()   # returns a list of tuples (key,value)
    my_dict.keys()    # returns a list of all the keys
    my_dict.values()  # returns a list of all the values

These are all lists, and you can enumerate over them using for, for
example:
 
    for i in my_dict.items():
        print "key = %s, value = %s" % i

Regards,
Jan