<worthingtonclin...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:891d3696-4e4e-44cc-a491-6b8fef47f...@googlegroups.com... > why in a for loop can i access values for a dict that i did not address in > the for loop. > > example: > > a = {blah:blah} > b = {blah:blah} > > for x in a: > > print a[x] > > #here's what i don't understand > > print b[x] > > # it would print the value for dict b even though it wasn't called upon > in the for loop! >
Iterating over a dictionary returns the keys of the dictionary. When you say 'for x in a', each iteration sets 'x' to the next key in dictionary 'a'. 'x' is a reference to a normal python object. It does not 'know' that it came from dictionary 'a', so you can do whatever you like with it. If you use it to retrieve a value in dictionary 'b', and the key happens to exist, it will return the value. Otherwise it will raise KeyError. HTH Frank Millman -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
