Printing a dictionary using .format in python

Question

I have a dictionary in the following format :-

d = { 'x' : 1, 'y' : 2, 'z' : 1, 'a' : 3 }

How can I print this to shell in the following format :-

 alphabet      number
----------------------
    a            3
    y            2
    x            1
    z            1

My code to print the dictionary to shell :- (ignoring printing 'alphabet,'number' and '-----')

for key,value in sorted(d.items()):
    print("{:>10}{:>20}".format(key,value))

So I know how to use the .format method to print the dictionary, but looking at the desired output I cannot understand how to print the dictionary by largest value to the smallest value.

Any suggestions?!

Look at the `key` argument of `sorted`. https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#sorted and https://wiki.python.org/moin/HowTo/Sorting/ — Ry-, Dec 01 '15 at 02:22
It would be duplicated of http://stackoverflow.com/q/613183/2218718 — cuonglm, Dec 01 '15 at 02:31

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 01 '15 at 02:26

2

Iterate like this:

for k in sorted(d, key=d.get, reverse=True):
    print("{:>10}{:>20}".format(k, d[k]))

answered Dec 01 '15 at 02:26

wim

338,267
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616
750

Thank you so much! It worked :) – Luke Dec 01 '15 at 02:36

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 01 '15 at 02:26

1

It would be,

>>> d = { 'x' : 1, 'y' : 2, 'z' : 1, 'a' : 3 }
>>> for i,j in sorted(d.items(), key=lambda x: x[1], reverse=True):
    print("{:>10}{:>20}".format(i,j))


         a                   3
         y                   2
         x                   1
         z                   1
>>>

answered Dec 01 '15 at 02:26

Avinash Raj

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Thank you so much! Your method works too :) – Luke Dec 01 '15 at 02:37

Printing a dictionary using .format in python

2 Answers2