Python equivalent of zip for dictionaries

Question

If I have these two lists:

la = [1, 2, 3]
lb = [4, 5, 6]

I can iterate over them as follows:

for i in range(min(len(la), len(lb))):
    print la[i], lb[i]

Or more pythonically

for a, b in zip(la, lb):
    print a, b

---

What if I have two dictionaries?

da = {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}
db = {'a': 4, 'b': 5, 'c': 6}

Again, I can iterate manually:

for key in set(da.keys()) & set(db.keys()):
    print key, da[key], db[key]

Is there some builtin method that allows me to iterate as follows?

for key, value_a, value_b in common_entries(da, db):
    print key, value_a, value_b 

Answer 1

There is no built-in function or method that can do this. However, you could easily define your own.

def common_entries(*dcts):
    if not dcts:
        return
    for i in set(dcts[0]).intersection(*dcts[1:]):
        yield (i,) + tuple(d[i] for d in dcts)

This builds on the "manual method" you provide, but, like zip, can be used for any number of dictionaries.

>>> da = {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}
>>> db = {'a': 4, 'b': 5, 'c': 6}
>>> list(common_entries(da, db))
[('c', 3, 6), ('b', 2, 5), ('a', 1, 4)]

When only one dictionary is provided as an argument, it essentially returns dct.items().

>>> list(common_entries(da))
[('c', 3), ('b', 2), ('a', 1)]

With no dictionaries, it returns an empty generator (just like zip())

>>> list(common_entries())
[]

Answer 2

The object returned by dict.keys() (called a dictionary key view) acts like a set object, so you can just take the intersection of the keys:

da = {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3, 'e': 7}
db = {'a': 4, 'b': 5, 'c': 6, 'd': 9}

common_keys = da.keys() & db.keys()

for k in common_keys:
    print(k, da[k], db[k])

On Python 2 you'll need to convert the keys to sets yourself:

common_keys = set(da) & set(db)

for k in common_keys:
    print k, da[k], db[k]

Answer 3

Dictionary key views are already set-like in Python 3. You can remove set():

for key in da.keys() & db.keys():
    print(key, da[key], db[key])

In Python 2:

for key in da.viewkeys() & db.viewkeys():
    print key, da[key], db[key]

Answer 4

In case if someone is looking for generalized solution:

import operator
from functools import reduce


def zip_mappings(*mappings):
    keys_sets = map(set, mappings)
    common_keys = reduce(set.intersection, keys_sets)
    for key in common_keys:
        yield (key,) + tuple(map(operator.itemgetter(key), mappings))

or if you like to separate key from values and use syntax like

for key, (values, ...) in zip_mappings(...):
    ...

we can replace last line with

yield key, tuple(map(operator.itemgetter(key), mappings))

---

Tests

from collections import Counter


counter = Counter('abra')
other_counter = Counter('kadabra')
last_counter = Counter('abbreviation')
for (character,
     frequency, other_frequency, last_frequency) in zip_mappings(counter,
                                                                 other_counter,
                                                                 last_counter):
    print('character "{}" has next frequencies: {}, {}, {}'
          .format(character,
                  frequency,
                  other_frequency,
                  last_frequency))

gives us

character "a" has next frequencies: 2, 3, 2
character "r" has next frequencies: 1, 1, 1
character "b" has next frequencies: 1, 1, 2

(tested on Python 2.7.12 & Python 3.5.2)