Tuple list from dict in Python

Question

How can I obtain a list of key-value tuples from a dict in Python?

Solution 1

For Python 2.x only (thanks Alex):

yourdict = {}
# ...
items = yourdict.items()

See http://docs.python.org/library/stdtypes.html#dict.items for details.

For Python 3.x only (taken from Alex's answer):

yourdict = {}
# ...
items = list(yourdict.items())

Solution 2

For a list of of tuples:

my_dict.items()

If all you're doing is iterating over the items, however, it is often preferable to use dict.iteritems(), which is more memory efficient because it returns only one item at a time, rather than all items at once:

for key,value in my_dict.iteritems():
     #do stuff

Solution 3

In Python 2.*, thedict.items(), as in @Andrew's answer. In Python 3.*, list(thedict.items()) (since there items is just an iterable view, not a list, you need to call list on it explicitly if you need exactly a list).

Solution 4

Converting from dict to list is made easy in Python. Three examples:

d = {'a': 'Arthur', 'b': 'Belling'}

d.items() [('a', 'Arthur'), ('b', 'Belling')]

d.keys() ['a', 'b']

d.values() ['Arthur', 'Belling']

as seen in a previous answer, Converting Python Dictionary to List.

View more solutions

Comments

[Andrew Keeton]

Meh, I'm not sure I like that... thanks for the tip, though.

[Kenan Banks]

@Andrew - he's basically that in Python 3+, the behavior of dict.items(), will be changing to match the behavior of dict.iteritems(), as I described them in my post.

[Andrew Keeton]

@Triptych I was just grumbling that they chose to make the iterator the default view.

[Jim]

the for loop could be used to make a list comprehension or a generator.

[Ben Hoyt]

Andrew, I think that choice just reflects the fact that the iterator is what you want most of the time.

[Alex Martelli]

@Andrew, benhoyt is right -- the vast majority of uses are just looping, and making a list explicitly in the rare cases where you do need a list is a very Pythonic approach after all!-)

[Anentropic]

that's a flat list of values, not the list of (key, value) tuples the poster was asking for