18 of 151 menu

The copy method

The copy method creates a copy of the dictionary. We do not specify anything in the method parameter.

Syntax

dictionary.copy()

Example

Let's copy our dictionary using the copy method:

dct1 = { 'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3 } dct2 = dct1.copy() print(dct2)

Result of code execution:

{'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}

Example

However, by using the copy method we only create a shallow copy of the dictionary - changes we make to the original dictionary after copying will not affect the copy:

dct1 = { 'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3 } dct2 = dct1.copy() dct1['e'] = 4 print('dct1', dct1) print('dct2', dct2)

Result of code execution:

dct1 {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3, 'e': 4} dct2 {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}

See also

  • method clear,
    which deletes all elements of the dictionary
  • method update,
    which updates a dictionary with the keys and values ​​of another dictionary
  • function len,
    which returns the length of the dictionary
byenru