Core Python Programming

7.4. Built-in Methods

Table 7.1 lists the methods for dictionary objects. The clear(), copy(), get(), and update() methods were added recently in Python 1.5. setdefault() was introduced in 2.0.

Table 7.1. Dictionary Type Methods

dictionary method	Operation
dict.clear[a]()	removes all elements of dictionary dict
dict.copy[a]()	returns a (shallow [b]) copy of dictionary dict
dict.get(key, default=None)[a]	for key key, returns value or default if key not in dictionary (note that default's default is None)
dict.has_key(key)	returns 1 if key in dictionary dict, 0 otherwise
dict.items()	returns a list of dict's (key, value) tuple pairs
dict.keys()	returns list of dictionary dict's keys
dict.setdefault key, default=None)[c]	similar to get(), but will set dict[key ...