How to update value in dictionary?

[mblume]

Am Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:45:13 +0200 schrieb Diez B. Roggisch:
> 
>> dict.update({"a":1}) SETS the dict item "a" 's value to 1.
>> 
>> i want to increase it by 1. isnt that possible in an easy way? 
>> I should use a tuple for this?
> 
> 
> 1) Don't use dict as name for a dictionary, it shadows the type dict
> 
> 2) setdefault is your friend
> 
> d = {}
> d['a'] = d.setdefault('a', 1) + 1
> 
d['a'] = d.get('a', 1) + 1

seems to me a little better, as d['a'] doesn't get set twice, right?

Curious
Martin