Alex Rivera | Logout

How to keep keys/values in same order as declared?

Asked 2009-12-08T15:53:35.527
417

I have a dictionary that I declared in a particular order and want to keep it in that order all the time. The keys/values can't really be kept in order based on their value, I just want it in the order that I declared it.

So if I have the dictionary:

d = {'ac': 33, 'gw': 20, 'ap': 102, 'za': 321, 'bs': 10}

It isn't in that order if I view it or iterate through it. Is there any way to make sure Python will keep the explicit order that I declared the keys/values in?

python dictionary
Edit
Report

1 Answer

2

I had a similar problem when developing a Django project. I couldn't use OrderedDict, because I was running an old version of python, so the solution was to use Django's SortedDict class:

https://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/SortedDict

e.g.,

from django.utils.datastructures import SortedDict
d2 = SortedDict()
d2['b'] = 1
d2['a'] = 2
d2['c'] = 3

Note: This answer is originally from 2011. If you have access to Python version 2.7 or higher, then you should have access to the now standard collections.OrderedDict, of which many examples have been provided by others in this thread.

answered 2011-06-02T15:46:31.183

Your Answer