Question

Please be gentle, I’m very new to programming and only own one book which is giving me some terrible directions (Head First Programming). Here is the code I have in the Python IDLE:

scores = {}

scores[8.45] = 'Zach'
scores[9.12] = 'Juan'
scores[8.31] = 'Aaron'
scores[8.05] = 'Aideen'
scores[8.65] = 'Johnny'
scores[7.81] = 'Stacey'

for key in scores.keys():
    print(scores[key] + ' had a score of ' + scores[???])

The program is meant to print a list containing both the names of the contestants and their corresponding scores but I dont know what I am doing wrong or right at this point :/

EDIT: Thank you guys. With your help i edited the code to working order, if you’re interested here it is:

scores = {}

scores['Zach'] = 8.45

scores['Juan'] = 9.12

scores['Aaron'] = 8.31

scores['Aideen'] = 8.05

scores['Johnny'] = 8.65

scores['Stacey'] = 7.81

for key in scores.keys():    
    print(str(key), ' had a score of ' , scores[key])

Answer 1

You can use the {...}.items() iterator as follows:

for score,name in scores.items():
    print('{name} had a score of {score}'.format(**locals()))

However, your dictionary is in the wrong order. For example, what if Zach and Juan had the same score of 9.10? Then, writing scores[9.10]='Zach' scores[9.10]='Juan' would overwrite Zach! The keys should be the names.

You can write it like this:

scores['Zach'] = 8.45
scores['Juan'] = 8.45
...

---

For the record, here’s how I’d do it from scratch:

def parseScores(string):
    scores = {}
    for line in string.splitlines():
        if line.strip():
            name,score = line.strip().split()
            scores[name] = float(score)
    return scores

data = """
    Zach 8.45
    Juan 9.12
    Aaron 2.2
    Aideen 2.2
    Johnny 2.2
    Stacey 7.81
"""

scores = parseScores(data)
for name,score in scores.items():
    print('{name} had a score of {score}'.format(**locals()))