Accessing items in lists within dictionary python

Question

I have a dictionary that has keys associated with lists.

mydict = {'fruits': ['banana', 'apple', 'orange'],
         'vegetables': ['pepper', 'carrot'], 
         'cheese': ['swiss', 'cheddar', 'brie']}

What I want to do is use an if statement that if I search for item and its in any of the lists within the dictionary it will return the key. This is what I was trying:

item = cheddar
if item in mydict.values():
    print key 

but it doesn't do anything, the output should be:

cheese

This seems like a simple thing but I just can't figure it out. Any help is awesome.

Answer 1

You'll have to use a for, a simple if is not enough to check an unknown set of lists:

for key in mydict.keys():
    if item in mydict[key]:
        print key

An approach without an explicit for statement would be possible like this:

foundItems = (key for key, vals in mydict.items() if item in vals)

which returns all keys which are associated with item. But internally, there's still some kind of iteration going on.

Answer 2

mydict = {'fruits': ['banana', 'apple', 'orange'],
     'vegetables': ['pepper', 'carrot'], 
     'cheese': ['swiss', 'cheddar', 'brie']}

item = "cheddar"
if item in mydict['cheese']:
    print ("true")

this works, but you have to reference the keys in the dictionary like cheese, vegetables etc instead because of the way you made the dictionary, hope this helps!