[Tutor] Calling a dictionary entry inside of a function

[Alan Gauld]

Corey Richardson wrote:
> I am trying to use a parameter of a function to call a word inside a 
> dictionary.
> Here is my code
> wordList = {
>    'Apple' : ["A delicious snack"],
>    'Word' : ["This code is not working..."],
> }
> def define(word):
>    print wordList['Word']
> 

You put quotess around word which means Pythn uses the literal string 
'word' as te kwey. You want to use thevalue of the variable word so you 
should just use word without quotes. Understanding the difference 
between literal values and symbolic values(variables) is very important.

here is a slightly differemt example:

d = {1:'first', 2:'second'}
one=0
two=2
print d[1]  # ok
print d[one]  # not ok, looking for d[0]
print d[2]  # ok
print d[two]  # ok lokking for d[2]
print d['two'   # not ok, looking for d['two']

HTH,

Alan G.