Keys order in dictionaries

[W Isaac Carroll]

Brainwashed wrote:
> And the second thing that bothers me is assigning multiple values at once
> from dictionary. I mean:
> 
>    x, y, z = dict         # where dict = { 'xx':.., 'yy':.., 'zz':.. }
> 
> This works okay for me, if I know that dict is always of size 3 and there
> is the same order of keys:values.

Depending on the order things come out of a dictionary is a bad idea.

> But now I came to the point when this dict can have both - 3 or 4 items 
> (same as this example from above, 'id' is the additional item that is not
> always present). And I want to assign x, y, z like I did before, but ommit
> id value. Is it possible to do at once, with some multiple assignment ? 
> Maybe there is a way to specify what three items should be taken from dict
> and assigned to x, y, z? I know, I can always do something like:
>   x = dict['xx']
>   y = dict['yy'] and so on, but I'm just curious if some more complicated 
> multiple assignment is possible in Python.
 >
 > How would you solve this problem?

First of all, remember that "dict" is a built-in function in Python, so 
it shouldn't be used as a variable name.

How about

     x, y, z = [foodict[key] for key in (key1, key2, key3)]

or

     x, y, z = foodict[key1], foodict[key2], foodict[key3]

TTFN