Python Library Reference

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5.3.2 defaultdict objects

defaultdict(

[default_factory[, ...]])

Returns a new dictionary-like object. defaultdict is a subclass of the builtin dict class. It overrides one method and adds one writable instance variable. The remaining functionality is the same as for the dict class and is not documented here.

The first argument provides the initial value for the default_factory attribute; it defaults to None. All remaining arguments are treated the same as if they were passed to the dict constructor, including keyword arguments.

New in version 2.5.

defaultdict objects support the following method in addition to the standard dict operations:

__missing__(

key)

If the default_factory attribute is None, this raises an KeyError exception with the key as argument.

If default_factory is not None, it is called without arguments to provide a default value for the given key, this value is inserted in the dictionary for the key, and returned.

If calling default_factory raises an exception this exception is propagated unchanged.

This method is called by the __getitem__ method of the dict class when the requested key is not found; whatever it returns or raises is then returned or raised by __getitem__.

defaultdict objects support the following instance variable:

default_factory

This attribute is used by the __missing__ method; it is initialized from the first argument to the constructor, if present, or to None, if absent.

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Python Library Reference

Previous: 5.3.1.1 Recipes Up: 5.3 collections Next: 5.3.2.1 defaultdict Examples

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Release 2.5, documentation updated on 19th September, 2006.