Question

Given the list:

keys = ['Orange','Blue','Green']

and the dictionary

colors = {}

What is the most Pythonic way to use (the elements of) keys as the keys to colors? I’m currently doing the following but want to know if there’s a better way of using Python than this.

for key in keys:
    colors[key] = []

EDIT: The question originally asked for “the most Pythonic way to use keys as the keys to colors“, but the subsequent code snippet indicates that what’s actually required is a way to use its elements.

Answer 1

you can use dict comprehensions:

In [1]: keys = ['Orange', 'Blue', 'Green']

In [2]: colors={key: [] for key in keys}

In [3]: colors
Out[3]: {'Blue': [], 'Green': [], 'Orange': []}

for python 2.6:

In [4]: colors = dict((key, []) for key in keys)

In [5]: colors
Out[5]: {'Blue': [], 'Green': [], 'Orange': []}