Update values for multiple keys in python

Question

What is the cleanest way to update the values of multiple keys in a dictionary to the values stored in a tuple?

Example:

I want to go from

>>>mydict = {'a':None, 'b':None, 'c':None, 'd':None}
>>>mytuple = ('alpha', 'beta', 'delta')

to

>>>print mydict
{'a':'alpha', 'b':'beta', 'c':None, 'd':'delta'}

Is there an easy one-liner for this? Something like this seems to be getting close to what I want.

EDIT: I don't wish to assign values to keys based on their first letter. I'm just hoping for something like

mydict('a','b','d') = mytuple

Obviously that doesn't work, but I'm hoping for something similar to that.

Answer 1

If you're trying to create a new dictionary:

d = dict(zip(keys, valuetuple))

If you're trying to add to an existing one, just change the = to .update(…).

So, your example can be written as:

mydict.update(dict(zip('abd', mytuple))))

If you're doing this more than once, I'd wrap it up in a function, so you can write:

setitems(d, ('a', 'b', 'd'), mytuple)

Or maybe a "curried" function that parallels operator.itemgetter?