Dictionaries

[Lad]

Steven,
Thank you for your reply and question.

>
> What should the result be if both dictionaries have the same key?
The answer: the values should be added together and assigned to the key
That is
{'a':1, 'b':5}
( from your example below)

Is there a solution?
Thanks for the reply
L.

>
> a={'a':1, 'b'=2}
> b={'b':3}
>
> should the result be:
> {'a':1, 'b'=2}  # keep the existing value
> {'a':1, 'b'=3}  # replace the existing value
> {'a':1, 'b'=[2, 3]}  # keep both values
> or something else?
>
> Other people have already suggested using the update() method. If you want
> more control, you can do something like this:
>
> def add_dict(A, B):
>     """Add dictionaries A and B and return a new dictionary."""
>     C = A.copy()  # start with a copy of A
>     for key, value in B.items():
>         if C.has_key(key):
>             raise ValueError("duplicate key '%s' detected!" % key)
>         C[key] = value
>     return C
> 
> 
> -- 
> Steven.