Add to list python

Add to list python

The append () Python method adds an item to the end of an existing list. The append () method does not create a new list. Instead, original list is changed. append () also lets you add the contents of one list to another list. Arrays are a built-in data structure in Python that can be used to organize and store data in a list.The only reason i can decipher is probably You are using Python 3, and you are following a tutorial designed for Python 2.x.. reduce has been removed from built in tools of python 3.. Still if you want to use reduce you can, by importing it from functools module.My goal is to parse the array, and append only the integers to a new list. Here is what I have done so far: def fun (a): if a == []: return None elif type (a) == int: print ("Found a digit: ", a) return a for i in a: fun (i) Currently, this function recursively goes through the list and successfully finds each integer; now, I am having an issue ...In Python, you can add a single item (element) to a list with append() and insert(). Combining lists can be done with extend(), +, +=, and slicing.Add an item to a …You can then collect those in a list, and return that list. Finally, you print the result. import random # import once def genDigit (): digit = random.randint (0, 9) return digit # return the digit def genNumber (): numList = list () # add missing () for counter in range (0,4): numList.append (genDigit ()) # add digits to list return numList ...Removes all the elements from the list. copy () Returns a copy of the list. count () Returns the number of elements with the specified value. extend () Add the elements of a list (or any iterable), to the end of the current list. index () Returns the index of the first element with the specified value.List is one of the most important data structure in python where you can add any type of element to the list. a= [1,"abc",3.26,'d'] To add an element to the list, we can use 3 built in functions: a) insert (index,object) This method can be used to insert the object at the preferred index position.For eg, to add an element '20' at the index 1: a ...If you want to see the dependency with the length of the list n: Pure python. I tested for list length up to n=10000 and the behavior remains the same. So the integer multiplication method is the fastest with difference. ... my_list.append(0) @timeit def add_loop(n): """Simple loop with +=""" my_list = [] for i in xrange(n): my_list += [0 ...There are many different methods to add elements to a list in Python. Here are some ways by which you can add elements to a List are given below. Using the Append () Method. Adding List to the List. Using the Concatenation operator. Using List Slicing. Adding elements to the end of a list with Python’s append () method increases the list’s ...33. The concatenation operator + is a binary infix operator which, when applied to lists, returns a new list containing all the elements of each of its two operands. The list.append () method is a mutator on list which appends its single object argument (in your specific example the list c) to the subject list.The W3Schools online code editor allows you to edit code and view the result in your browser.Append Python Dictionary to List Using dict() constructor. We can also use the dict() to do a shallow copy of the dictionary and use this copied dictionary to the append() method to add the dictionary to the end of the list. This method also yields the same output as above.Methods to insert data in a list using: list.append(), list.extend and list.insert(). Syntax, code examples, and output for each data insertion method. How to implement a stack using list insertion and …7. You can use list addition within a list comprehension, like the following: a = [x + ['a'] for x in a] This gives the desired result for a. One could make it more efficient in this case by assigning ['a'] to a variable name before the loop, but it depends what you want to do. Share. Improve this answer.Append multiple lists at once in Python. For various data analysis work in python we may be needed to combine many python lists into one list. This will help processing it as a single input list for the other parts of the program that need it. It provides performance gains by reducing number of loops required for processing the data further.However, the nested lists are actually all references to the same list object. So when you iterate over list1 with. for item in list1: item refers to the same list object on each iteration. So you repeated append to the same list. On the other hand, list2 in your example code is explicitly assigned a list with three different lists. Those lists ...The concatenate operator can also be used to add a tuple to a list. We use the '+' operator to combine two objects, such as two strings, two lists, or a list and a tuple. The concatenate operator can be used to append a tuple to a list as shown below: a = [1, 2, 3] b = (4, 5, 6) c = a + [b] print (c)This tutorial covers the following topic - Python Add lists. It describes various ways to join/concatenate/add lists in Python. For example - simply appending elements of one list to the tail of the other in a for loop, or using +/* operators, list comprehension, extend(), and itertools.chain() methods.. Most of these techniques use built-in constructs in Python.If the value is not present in the list, we use the list.append() method to add it.. The list.append() method adds an item to the end of the list. The method returns None as it mutates the original list. # Append multiple values to a List if not present You can use the same approach if you need to iterate over a collection of values, check if each value is present in a list and only append ...Then append each line from the text file to your list using a for loop. Add elements to a list from a text file each line as a new element in Python. Let’s start with our example text file. filename: my_text_file.txt. This is a text file And we are going to add these lines to a list in Python. Now we are about to add all the lines one by one ...Syntax of List insert () The syntax of the insert () method is. list.insert (i, elem) Here, elem is inserted to the list at the i th index. All the elements after elem are shifted to the right. In this tutorial, we will learn about the Python List insert() method with the help of examples. Courses Tutorials Examples . Try Programiz PRO. ... Add two numbers. Check prime number. Find the factorial of a number. Print the Fibonacci sequence. Check leap year. All Python ExamplesOutput. 5. The above example prints the length of the list in the output. The length of the list is 5 as it contains 5 items including string and integers.. Add List Element. If you want to add or insert elements to the list in Python.How to create a Python list. Let’s start by creating a list: my_list = [1, 2, 3] empty_list = [] Lists contain regular Python objects, separated by commas and surrounded by brackets. The elements in a list can have any data type, and they can be mixed. You can even create a list of lists.In this article, we'll learn everything about Python lists; how they are created, slicing of a list, adding or removing elements from them and so on. Courses Tutorials Examples . ... Python list provides different methods to add items to a list. 1. Using append() The append() method adds an item at the end of the list.W3Schools offers free online tutorials, references and exercises in all the major languages of the web. Covering popular subjects like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, SQL, Java, and many, many more.To add and remove items from a list in Python; In this tutorial, you will learn how to add and remove items or elements from a list in python program. Python has two methods first is append (), which is used to add an element in list. And the second method is pop, which is used to remove an element from list.Some built-in to pad a list in python. I have a method that will return a list (instance variable) with 4 elements. Another method is used to assign values to the list. ... Originally I wanted to add something like list = (list + [0 for _ in range(4)])[:4] and then realized that it works simpler. - glglgl. Aug 11, 2011 at 13:49. 2.Aug 30, 2021 · The Quick Answer: append () – appends an object to the end of a list. insert () – inserts an object before a provided index. extend () – append items of iterable objects to end of a list. + operator – concatenate multiple lists together. A highlight of the ways you can add to lists in Python! How do I add a list of values to an existing set? Edit: some explanation: The documentation defines a set as an unordered collection of distinct hashable objects. The objects have to be hashable so that finding, adding and removing elements can be done faster than looking at each individual element every time you perform these operations.Using the append() method: The append() method in Python adds an element to the end of a list. You don't typically use it for list concatenation, but rather for adding individual elements to an existing list. Using the extend() method: This method involves using the extend() method to add2 Answers. insert () needs two parameters - index and object. If you want to append to the end of the list, just use append (). You need to use the append function to append values to the end of a list. So instead of doing checklist.insert (rndm), do checklist.append (rndm). In case you want to insert values at specific location, use checklist ...Time complexity: O(n), where n is the number of dictionaries in the list. Auxiliary space: O(n), where n is the number of dictionaries in the list. Method 5: Using the itertools library: Steps: Import the itertools library.; Initialize the list of dictionaries and the list to append as values.; Define the key to add to the dictionary.Elements are added to list using append(): >>> data = {'list': [{'a':'1'}]} >>> data['list'].append({'b':'2'}) >>> data {'list': [{'a': '1'}, {'b': '2'}]} If you want ...In Python, there are three built-in methods to add items to a list. They are append(), extend(), and insert(). We'll cover all of them but first, take a look at the append() method. append() If you want to add a single element to the end of a list, you should use the append() method. It can be used to add any type of data to an existing list ...When it comes to painting your home, you want to make sure that you get the best quality products at the best prices. The Asian Paints Price List can help you find the perfect paint for your project. Here are some things to look for when sh...Python list.extend() Python list.insert() Python + operator; Let’s dive in! How to Append a String to a List with Python with extend. The Python list.extend() method is used to add items from an iterable object to the end of a list. Because of this, we need to be careful, since Python strings themselves are iterable. Let’s see what happens ...We can append/add a dictionary to the list using the list.append()method of Python. We know that Python lists are mutable and allow different types of data types as their values. Since it is mutable, we can add elements to the list or delete elements from the list.How does one insert a key value pair into a python list? You can't. What you can do is "imitate" this by appending tuples of 2 elements to the list: a = 1 b = 2 some_list = [] some_list.append((a, b)) some_list.append((3, 4)) print some_list >>> …If you really like the word zip, you can use it lots: zip (*zip (*zipped), L3) If you’re using Python 2 or are a fan of having people understand your code, a list comprehension is probably best: [old + (new,) for old, new in zip (zipped, L3)] Your edit seems to indicate you just want to zip some number of lists, though:This is what you're probably trying to do with your function. def split_food (input): global list_of_food #split the input words = input.split () for i in words: list_of_food.append (i) However, because you shouldn't use globals unless absolutely necessary (it's not a great practice), this is the best method:I would add a new method add_items that calls your original add_item in a loop. This will keep your code cleaner and easier to work with. class ShoppingCart (object): items_in_cart = {} def __init__ (self, customer_name): self.customer_name = customer_name def add_item (self, product, price): """Add product to the cart.""" if not product in ...If you add a dictionary to a list in Python, it won't create a copy of this dictionary, but rather add a reference to the dictionary. my_list = ['cat', 4, 'emu', 'dog', '.'] Now, let's think about what happened. The my_dict dictionary was added to the my_list list and printed. The result is what we expect.Sep 17, 2012 · So, range based for loop in this example , when the python reach the last word of your list, it should'nt add "-" to your concenated_string. If its not last word of your string always append "-" string to your concenated_string variable. I have done the following linked list in python, it works fine, but I was wondering if there is another way to to the part add_item to a linked list. In that part what I want to do is to keep a pointer in the first element, and so adding the elements in front of it, for example: 1 first. 1----->2 first. 1----->2----->3 first . my code is:May 20, 2015 · Elements are added to list using append(): >>> data = {'list': [{'a':'1'}]} >>> data['list'].append({'b':'2'}) >>> data {'list': [{'a': '1'}, {'b': '2'}]} If you want ... A set uses .update to add multiple items, and .add to add a single one.. Why doesn't collections.Counter work the same way?. To increment a single Counter item using Counter.update, it seems like you have to add it to a list:. from collections import Counter c = Counter() for item in something: for property in properties_of_interest: if item.has_some_property: # simplified: more complex logic ...Python in Excel uses the custom Python function xl() to interface between Excel and Python. The xl() function accepts Excel objects like ranges, tables, queries, and names.. …Oct 5, 2023 · Step 2: Use the append () Function. The append () function in Python provides an easy, built-in method for appending or adding an individual element to the end of a list. You can incorporate it by simply using the format 'list_name.append (item)'. For instance, you can enlist 'my_list.append ("Apple")', which would seamlessly add the string ... In case you wanted to append elements from one list to another list, you can either use the extend () or insert () with for loop. 1. Quick Examples of Append List to a List. Following are quick examples of appending a list to another list. # Append list into another list languages1.append(languages2) # Append multiple lists into another list ...Python insert into list function is used to insert an element at a specified position in a list. The syntax of the insert () function is as follows: list.insert (index, element) Here, list is the name of the list, index is the position where the element needs to be inserted, and element is the value that needs to be inserted.. But this is inefficient, because in Python, a list is an array of pointers, ... 6490256823599339 seconds deque_appendleft took 1.4702797569334507 seconds list_insert_0 took 1.9417422469705343 seconds list_add took 2.7092894352972507 seconds list_slice_insert took 3.1809083241969347 seconds >>> compare_prepends(100, 100_000) deque_extendleft ...Let me add a link to the documentation of __repr__: "If at all possible, this should look like a valid Python expression that could be used to recreate an object with the same value (given an appropriate environment)." -Add a comment. 20. To solve your exact question, you can do this: def list_append (lst, item): lst.append (item) return lst. and then list_append (lst, item) will append item to the lst and then return the lst. Share. Improve this answer. Follow. answered Dec 16, 2009 at 22:34.So the above list is an input, which we can use with for loop to add values to the dictionary of lists. Syntax: for key, value in input: data [key].append (value) where, key is the key in the input list. value is the value in the input list. Example 1: Python program to create an input list of students subjects and add to the dictionary of list.answered Oct 26, 2015 at 21:41. G. Cohen. 604 5 4. Add a comment. 35. Try new_list = a [0:2] + [a [4]] + a [6:]. Or more generally, something like this: from itertools import chain new_list = list (chain (a [0:2], [a [4]], a [6:])) This works with other sequences as well, and is likely to be faster.Removes all the elements from the list. copy () Returns a copy of the list. count () Returns the number of elements with the specified value. extend () Add the elements of a list (or any iterable), to the end of the current list. index () Returns the index of the first element with the specified value.Feb 3, 2022 · Method 1: Appending a dictionary to a list with the same key and different values. Here we are going to append a dictionary of integer type to an empty list using for loop with same key but different values. We will use the using zip () function. Syntax: list= [dict (zip ( [key], [x])) for x in range (start,stop)] Aug 3, 2022 · Naive Method. List Comprehension. extend () method. ‘*’ operator. itertools.chain () method. 1. Concatenation operator (+) for List Concatenation. The '+' operator can be used to concatenate two lists. It appends one list at the end of the other list and results in a new list as output. We will use the for loop to add elements to a list with the help of the Python append() method. Also, we will know how to add the elements to the empty and non-empty lists throughout this tutorial by covering the following topics.Add values to dictionary Using two lists of the same length. This method is used if we have two lists and we want to convert them into a dictionary with one being key and the other one as corresponding values. Python3. roll_no = [10, 20, 30, 40, 50] names = ['Ramesh', 'Mahesh', 'Kamlesh', 'Suresh', 'Dinesh']The W3Schools online code editor allows you to edit code and view the result in your browser.Python lists are mutable objects that can contain different data types. Because of this, you’ll often find yourself appending items to lists. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to append a dictionary to a list in Python. While this may seem like a trivial task, there is a little complexity to it. Don’t worry, though!… Read More »How to Append a …For each word, check to see if the word is already in a list. If the word is not in the list, add it to the list. Here is what I've got. fhand = open ('romeo.txt') output = [] for line in fhand: words = line.split () for word in words: if word is not output: output.append (word) print sorted (output) Here is what I get.The make of the car is an attribute of a car instance, it can be accessed using car.make.So when looping through each of the car instances in the vehicles_list you can put a check before printing to say if car.make == 'tesla': ....If you are looking to hold lots of data on cars and filter by their attributes, look into the pandas Python library, since it seems natural to store that data in a ...I want to add more ,let's say 3 more. I also have a dataframe with 3 columns: Title, Scientist, ID I would like to create multiple new items, one for each row, and upload them into the listto know more about insert method Python List insert() Share. Improve this answer. Follow edited Jun 26, 2020 at 20:56. Tom. 8,360 2 2 gold badges 16 16 silver badges 36 36 bronze badges. answered Jun 26, 2020 at 20:38. shivam sharma shivam sharma. 121 1 1 silver badge 4 4 bronze badges.To add elements to the list, use append. my_list.append (12) To extend the list to include the elements from another list use extend. my_list.extend ( [1,2,3,4]) my_list --> [12,1,2,3,4] To remove an element from a list use remove. my_list.remove (2) Dictionaries represent a collection of key/value pairs also known as an associative array or a map.Add a comment. 1. Just omit the parens: tier_1_questions = [question_1, question_2] If you include the parenthesis, the function body is executed. That's why you still see the questions being printed, even after you remove print tier_1_questions [0]. To evaluate the function, then, you'll do this: tier_1_questions [0] ().Jul 11, 2023 · Add Element to Front of List in Python. Let us see a few different methods by which we can append a value at the beginning of a Python list. Using Insert () Method. Using [ ] and + Operator. Using List Slicing. Using collections.deque.appendleft () using extend () method. using list () and itertools.chain () Functions. Extending a list. Using the list classes extend method, you can do a copy of the elements from one list onto another. However this will cause extra memory usage, which should be fine in most cases, but might cause problems if you want to be memory efficient. a = [0,1,2] b = [3,4,5] a.extend(b) >>[0,1,2,3,4,5] Chaining a listThe chain() function from the itertools module can also be employed to append multiple list in Python as it uses the iterator to perform this and hence offers better performance over the above method. Python3. from itertools import chain # initializing lists. test_list1 = [1, 3, 5, 5, 4]What is an Empty List in Python? Before moving to Empty List, let's quickly recap List in Python. List in Python is just like arrays but with a major advantage that a List can contain heterogeneous items, making a list a great Python tool.Hence a list can contain several data types like Integers, Strings, and Objects.. Now let's see what is an Empty List in Python, as the name indicates an ...python: most elegant way to intersperse a list with an element 133 Pythonic way to combine (interleave, interlace, intertwine) two lists in an alternating fashion?The pythonic way to read a file and put every lines in a list: from __future__ import with_statement #for python 2.5 with open ('C:/path/numbers.txt', 'r') as f: lines = f.readlines () Then, assuming that each lines contains a number, numbers = [int (e.strip ()) for e in lines] Share. Improve this answer.For any type of list, you could do this (using the + operator on all items no matter what their type is): items = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h'] items [3:6] = [reduce (lambda x, y: x + y, items [3:6])] This makes use of the reduce function with a lambda function that basically adds the items together using the + operator. Share ...Sep 23, 2023 · By the way, it will be useful if you have some elementary knowledge about the Python list. If not, please go through the linked tutorial. Python Add Lists – 6 Ways to Join/Concatenate Lists For loop to add two lists. It is the most straightforward programming technique for adding two lists. Traverse the second list using a for loop Jeremy. 1. Add a comment. 6. You can improve the check a lot: check = set (List) for Item in NewList: if Item in check: ItemNumber = List.index (Item) else: ItemNumber = len (List) List.append (Item) Or, even better, if order is not important you can do this: oldlist = set (List) addlist = set (AddList) newlist = list (oldlist | addlist) And if ...2. When appending a list to a list, the list becomes a new item of the original list: list_first_3 == [ ["cat", 3.14, "dog"]] You are looking for: list_first_3 += list [:3] # ["cat", 3.14, "dog"] This adds every item from list to list_first_3. Also you shouldn't name your variables like inbuilt types like list.Here's the timeit comparison of all the answers with list of 1000 elements on Python 3.9.1 and Python 2.7.16. Answers are listed in the order of performance for both the Python versions. Answers are listed in the order of performance for both the Python versions.The first problem I see is that when you call testList.append() you are including the [3000].That is problematic because with a list, that syntax means you're looking for the element at index 3000 within testList.All you need to do is call testList.append(<thing_to_append>) to append an item to testList.. The other problem …We can also use the extend () function to append multiple items to a list. This function takes an iterable (such as a list or tuple) as an argument and appends each item from the iterable to the list. Here's an example: my_list = [1, 2, 3] new_items = [4, 5, 6] # Append multiple items using extend () my_list.extend(new_items) print(my_list) Output:Python - Add List Items Append Items. Insert Items. To insert a list item at a specified index, use the insert () method. Note: As a result of the examples... Extend List. To append elements from another list to the current list, use the extend () method. The elements will be... Add Any Iterable. ...In this article, we will discuss how to add elements to a list in Python. Adding Elements to a List. There are several ways to add elements to a list in Python. Let's start with the most basic method: Method 1: Using the Append Method. The append() method is a built-in Python function that adds an element to the end of a list. Here's an example:In this article, you’ll learn how to append user inputs to a Python list in different ways. The article will contain this content: 1) Example Data. 2) Example 1: Add User Inputs to List One by One. 3) Example 2: Add User Inputs to List at Once. 4) Example 3: Add User Input to List Controlled by Stopping Condition.For when you have objects in a list and need to check a certain attribute to see if it's already in the list. Not saying this is the best solution, but it does the job: def _extend_object_list_prevent_duplicates (list_to_extend, sequence_to_add, unique_attr): """ Extends list_to_extend with sequence_to_add (of objects), preventing duplicate values.If you want to see the dependency with the length of the list n: Pure python. I tested for list length up to n=10000 and the behavior remains the same. So the integer multiplication method is the fastest with difference. ... my_list.append(0) @timeit def add_loop(n): """Simple loop with +=""" my_list = [] for i in xrange(n): my_list += [0 ...To expand on what shuttle87 said: class Card: card_name = '' makes card_name a static variable (shared between all instances of that class). Once you make the variable non-static (by using self.card_name in the __init__ method) you won't have to worry about the copy part as each instance of the card class will have it's own unique name. On that note, the …My +1 for "construct" as it is consistent with other OO languages. The list(arg) is understood in other languages as calling a constructor of the list class. Actually, it is also the Python case. The debates whether the object is filled during the construction (as in the C++ case) or only during the first automatically called method (as in the Python …We often encounter a situation when we need to take a number/string as input from the user. In this article, we will see how to get input a list from the user using Python.. Example:Open-source programming languages, incredibly valuable, are not well accounted for in economic statistics. Gross domestic product, perhaps the most commonly used statistic in the world for evaluating economic progress, has some issues. Incr...I am trying to adjust the format of a list which looks like below: data=[1,10,313,4000,51234,123456] and I would like to convert them to a list of strings with leading zeros: Stack Overflow. ... Python: How to add a zero after every digit in a number for numbers in list to create a new list.In this Python tutorial, you'll learn how to append dictionaries to a list using different methods. The article contains these contents: 1) Introduce Example Data. 2) Example 1: Append Single Dictionary to List using append () 3) Example 2: Append Multiple Dictionaries to List using extend () 4) Example 3: Append Multiple Dictionaries to List ...If the value is not present in the list, we use the list.append() method to add it.. The list.append() method adds an item to the end of the list. The method returns None as it mutates the original list. # Append multiple values to a List if not present You can use the same approach if you need to iterate over a collection of values, check if each value is present in a list and only append ...327 2 3 15. Add a comment. 1. You can add all items to the list, then use .join () function to add new line between each item in the list: for i in range (10): line = ser.readline () if line: lines.append (line) lines.append (datetime.now ()) final_string = '\n'.join (lines) Share. Improve this answer. Follow.Apr 22, 2011 · In Matlab, is fairly simple to add a number to elements in a list: a = [1,1,1,1,1] b = a + 1 b then is [2,2,2,2,2] In python this doesn't seem to work, at least on a list. Is there a simple fast way to add up a single number to the entire list. Thanks To this: number_list.append (int (num)) Alternatively, a more Pythonic way of doing this would be to use the sum () function, and map () to convert each string in your initial list to an integer: number_string = input ("Enter some numbers: ") print (sum (map (int, number_string))) Be aware though, that if you input something like "123abc" your ...Spark users can access Power BI data from all languages supported in Fabric: Python, R, and SparkSQL using the semantic link Spark native connector. Configure the Power BI catalog to gain access to all your datasets. In this example we evaluate a measure using the special _Metrics table.if issue == 'no': case_number += 1 case_numbers.append (case_number) print (case_numbers) Here, case_numbers.append (case_number) statements add the elements to the list. While it's true that you can append values to a list by adding another list onto the end of it, you then need to assign the result to a variable.The union () built-in function combines the elements of two sets. So to add list values to a set, we need first to convert the list into a set and then use union (): # Declares a set with items. pet_set = {"dog", "cat", "red fish"} # Declares a list with items.similar to above case, initially stack is appended with ['abc'] and appended to global_var as well. But in next iteration, the same stack is appended with def and becomes ['abc', 'def'].When we append this updated stack, all the places of stack is used will now have same updated value (arrays are passed by reference, here stack is just an array or …I created a simple program where a user can add items to their grocery list. After an item is added they're asked if they're done. If they type "yes" the items on the list is printed and the program exits If they type no they can add more items to the list. The problem is that I only want yes or no as the only option.Python is a popular programming language that is widely used for various applications, including web development, data analysis, and artificial intelligence. One of the main advantages of downloading Python onto your computer is that it all...If you add new items to a list, the new items will be placed at the end of the list. Note: There are some list methods that will change the order, but in general: the order of the items …1. Adding to an array using Lists. If we are using List as an array, the following methods can be used to add elements to it: By using append () function: It adds elements to the end of the array. By using insert () function: It inserts the elements at the given index. By using extend () function: It elongates the list by appending elements ...In this article, we will discuss how to add elements to a list in Python. Adding Elements to a List. There are several ways to add elements to a list in Python. Let's start with the most basic method: Method 1: Using the Append Method. The append() method is a built-in Python function that adds an element to the end of a list. Here's an example:In this article, we will cover how to add a new Key to a Dictionary in Python.We will use 8 different methods to append new keys to a dictionary. Dictionary in Python is an unordered collection of data values, used to store data values like a map, unlike other Data Types that hold only a single value as an element, a Dictionary holds a key: value pair.