type = "instance" instead of "dict"

[Kent Johnson]

Cruella DeVille wrote:
> I'm trying to implement a bookmark-url program, which accepts user
> input and puts the strings in a dictionary. Somehow I'm not able to
> iterate myDictionary of type Dict{}
> 
> When I write print type(myDictionary) I get that the type is
> "instance", which makes no sense to me. What does that mean?

Maybe you have an instance of UserDict instead of a built-in dict?

  >>> type({})
<type 'dict'>
  >>> from UserDict import UserDict
  >>> type(UserDict())
<type 'instance'>

UserDict.UserDict is not iterable, though you can still use
   for k in myDictionary.keys()

There is also UserDict.IterableUserDict which does support iteration.

I don't think there is much reason to use UserDict in modern Python as 
dict can be subclassed.

Kent