Accessing random key of dict

Question

suppose I have a dictionary with some keys.

I can access a key by name:

my_dict[my_key]

Now suppose I want to access one of the keys (no matter which). I could just list the keys and take the first one.

So the access to this key will look like

my_dict[my_dict.keys()[0]]

However I'm wondering if I can just directly access the "first" element of a dictionary by just indexing. I know "first" doesn't make sense, but I just mean the first key that my_dict.keys() would return.

Something like:

my_dict[0]

But here instead of taking "the key 0" I want this 0 to be an index.

Why I want this:

Basically all keys have the same structure inside, and I need to get this structure, so any of the keys will work.

I would be happy with a solution either for python2 or python3 — , Feb 16 '18 at 10:07
I actually think this question is subtly different. In any case, I added a new solution to the original question: https://stackoverflow.com/a/48824551/9209546 — jpp, Feb 16 '18 at 10:18

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 16 '18 at 10:12

0

Not sure you may find another trick than what you mention i.e. my_dict[my_dict.keys()[0]].

As dictionaries are unordered, I'm not quite sure though what an index would mean.

Now, you may want to put that in a pandas.DataFrame() using :

import pandas as pd
df = pd.DataFrame.from_dict(my_dict)

Which handles indices.

Now you can indeed do :

> df.iloc[0]

answered Feb 16 '18 at 10:12

arnaud

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This question never mentions `pandas` and does not have `pandas` tag – jamylak Feb 16 '18 at 10:14
That's right but I thought maybe user doesn't know / didn't think of it. In my opinion that seems like a good candidate when considering dicts with index. – arnaud Feb 16 '18 at 10:15

Accessing random key of dict

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