Return None if Dictionary key is not available

Question

I need a way to get a dictionary value if its key exists, or simply return None, if it does not.

However, Python raises a KeyError exception if you search for a key that does not exist. I know that I can check for the key, but I am looking for something more explicit. Is there a way to just return None if the key does not exist?

Answer 1

You can use dict.get()

value = d.get(key) 

which will return None if key is not in d. You can also provide a different default value that will be returned instead of None:

value = d.get(key, "empty") 

Answer 2

Wonder no more. It's built into the language.

     >>> help(dict)      Help on class dict in module builtins:      class dict(object)      |  dict() -> new empty dictionary      |  dict(mapping) -> new dictionary initialized from a mapping object's      |      (key, value) pairs     ...      |        |  get(...)      |      D.get(k[,d]) -> D[k] if k in D, else d.  d defaults to None.      |       ...