grab dict keys/values without iterating ?!

[Tamer Higazi]

Hi Dave!

You were absolutely right.
I don't want to iterate the entire dict to get me the key/values

Let us say this dict would have 20.000 entries, but I want only those 
with "Aa" to be grabed.
Those starting with these 2 letters would be only 5 or 6 then it would 
take a lot of time.

In which way would you prefer to store the data, and which functions or 
methods would you use effectively to accomplish this task ?

I deeply apologize of not defining the question more defined. English is 
not my mother tongue.
I'll do my best next time.


Thanks



Tamer

On 11.12.2013 06:47, Dave Angel wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Dec 2013 02:02:20 +0200, Tamer Higazi 
> <tameritoke2 at arcor.de> wrote:
>> Is there a way to get dict by search terms without iterating the 
> entire
>> dictionary ?!
>
>> I want to grab the dict's key and values started with 'Ar'...
>
> Your wording is so ambiguous that each respondent has guessed 
> differently.
> I'm guessing that you want all key/value pairs for which the key 
> begins with the two letters 'Ar' I'm guessing further that your 
> objection to iterating the entire dictionary is not code size but 
> performance.
> If both assumptions are valid then I'll point out that a dict has no 
> ordering to it. If you want an approach that doesn't iterate over the 
> entire structure you'll need to store the data differently.  For 
> example if you stored all the keys in a sorted list you could use bisect.
>