How to Access Arbitrary Dictionary Elements in Python

Accessing Arbitrary Dictionary Elements

Retrieve any element from a dictionary in Python without relying on a specific order or key.

Original Code

You can access an arbitrary key by iterating over the keys and selecting the first value:

<code class="python">mydict[list(mydict.keys())[0]]</code>

Alternative Approaches

• Iterative (Python 3 and 2)

Obtain the first value using the next() function on the dictionary's iterated values:

<code class="python">Python 3: next(iter(mydict.values()))
Python 2: mydict.itervalues().next()</code>

• Six Package (Multi-Version Compatibility)

Use the six package to handle both Python 2 and 3:

<code class="python">six.next(six.itervalues(mydict))</code>

• Item Removal

To retrieve and remove an item simultaneoulsy:

<code class="python">key, value = mydict.popitem()</code>

Note:

• Dictionaries in Python versions prior to 3.6 are not ordered, so using terms like "first" may be misleading.
• In Python 3.6 and above, dictionaries are ordered, maintaining the insertion order of elements.

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