How To Maintain The Order Of An Existing Dictionary Python

I created a dictionary, and later I'd like in insert it's values to a list. I know that lists keep their order, but I think that dictionaries are not. I know there is OrderedDict,

Solution 1:

In Python 3.6, dictionaries are ordered internally, but this is considered an implementation detail which should not be relied upon.

In Python 3.7, dictionaries are ordered.

Therefore, you have 2 options:

Use the implementation detail at your risk

You can use list(d) to retrieve the keys of the dictionary maintaining insertion order.

dirs_dictionary = {"user_dir_treatment":"/home/dataset_1/treatment",
                   "user_dir_control":"/home/dataset_1/control"}

empty_list = list(dirs_dictionary)

print(empty_list)

# ['user_dir_treatment', 'user_dir_control']

Use OrderedDict

from collections import OrderedDict

dirs_dictionary = OrderedDict([("user_dir_treatment", "/home/dataset_1/treatment"),
                               ("user_dir_control", "/home/dataset_1/control")]

empty_list = list(dirs_dictionary)

print(empty_list)

# ['user_dir_treatment', 'user_dir_control']