Printing a dictionary with str in Python

Question

I have the following dictionary on python:

dic = {1:'Ááa',2:'lol'}

if I printing it appears

print dic
{1: '\xc3\x81\xc3\xa1a', 2: 'lol'}

How can I obtain the following ouput ?

print dic
{1: 'Ááa', 2: 'lol'}

Works in my Python-2.7. Also where on earth is `'hola'` coming from. — miradulo, Apr 12 '15 at 15:14
It would not work in python2 as you are seeing the repr output — Padraic Cunningham, Apr 12 '15 at 15:15
Yea @BhargavRao , in Python 3.4.2 it works , that's ok for me (and I change 'lol' now) — user106306, Apr 12 '15 at 15:24

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

2

You can not do that as the strings within data structure like dictionary or list printed by __repr__ method of string not __str__. for more info read What is the difference between str and repr in Python

repr(object)

Return a string containing a printable representation of an object.

As an alternative you can convert the items to string and print them :

>>> print '{'+','.join([':'.join(map(str,k)) for k in dic.items()])+'}'
{1:Ááa,2:lol}

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Apr 12 '15 at 15:15

Mazdak

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If you have a nested dict or list as a value etc.. the alternative won't work – Padraic Cunningham Apr 12 '15 at 15:32
You can use a generator expression instead of a list comprehension by dropping those square brackets. That'll saves time and memory by avoiding building a `list` that will be iterated over once and then discarded. – Blacklight Shining Apr 12 '15 at 15:40
@BlacklightShining yeah, it's a better ideal i always forget that! – Mazdak Apr 12 '15 at 15:43
@BlacklightShining, using a generator expression with join is actually less efficient. – Padraic Cunningham Apr 12 '15 at 15:45
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@PadraicCunningham Really? Why? – Blacklight Shining Apr 12 '15 at 15:47
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@BlacklightShining, because python has to do two passes over the data when using join so using a generator means it has to build a list first. – Padraic Cunningham Apr 12 '15 at 15:49
@PadraicCunningham If `str.join()` builds a list out of the iterable it is passed, then it should make no difference. I would still use a genexpr, for habit and practice if nothing else. – Blacklight Shining Apr 12 '15 at 15:50
@PadraicCunningham Thanks do you have any reference that explain more? – Mazdak Apr 12 '15 at 15:51
@BlacklightShining, how do you do two passes over a generator? It only builds a list when you don't pass it one – Padraic Cunningham Apr 12 '15 at 15:51

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 12 '15 at 15:38

If you don't mind getting just the strings, without the enclosing quotes, you could iterate over the dict and print out each key-value pair yourself.

from __future__ import print_function

for key, value in dict_.iteritems():
    print(key, value, sep=': ', end=',\n')

If you're just going to print once, I would do this rather than building a string. If you want to do other things, or print them more than once, use Kasra's answer.

This does get confusing if the keys or values have colons, commas, or newlines in them, and the output won't be a valid Python literal, but it's the simplest way short of upgrading to Python 3.

reticentroot · Answer 3 · 2015-04-12T16:05:49.117

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I'm not sure if this is the best way to do what you want. I created a class to represent the data the way you wanted it. However you should note that a dictionary data type is no longer being returned. This is just a quick way to represent the data. The first line # -*- coding: utf-8 -*- globally specifies the encoding type. So if you just want to be able to print your dictionary this will work.

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
class print_dict(object):

    def __init__(self, dictionary):
        self.mydict = dictionary

    def __str__(self):
        represented_dict = []
        for k, v in self.mydict.items():
             represented_dict.append("{0}: {1}".format(k, v))
        return "{" + ", ".join(represented_dict) + "}"





dic = {1: 'Ááa', 2: 'lol'}
print print_dict(dic)

edited Apr 12 '15 at 16:05

answered Apr 12 '15 at 15:43

reticentroot

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As with [Kasara's answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/29590993/1561811), consider using a generator expression instead of building a list and passing it to `str.join()`. – Blacklight Shining Apr 12 '15 at 15:48
That's a good modification to add. When i get a chance i'll reimplement. – reticentroot Apr 12 '15 at 15:49
Or maybe not. [Padraic has pointed out to me](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29590948/printing-a-dictionary-with-str-in-python/29591238#comment47329651_29590993) that [passing `str.join()` a listcomp is actually more efficient](http://stackoverflow.com/a/9061024/2141635). I got similar results with Python 3 on my system, too. – Blacklight Shining Apr 12 '15 at 16:00
lol oh okay, then i'll leave as is, the OP can do the research if they want to return a dictionary. – reticentroot Apr 12 '15 at 16:01

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 12 '15 at 16:13

0

This works fine in python 3.

This is how it looks like when executed in python shell.

>>> dic={1: 'Ááa',2: 'lol'}
>>> print(dic)
{1: 'Ááa', 2: 'lol'}

answered Apr 12 '15 at 16:13

Tharika Madurapperuma

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Printing a dictionary with str in Python

4 Answers4