Get key by value in dictionary

Question

I made a function which will look up ages in a Dictionary and show the matching name:

dictionary = {'george' : 16, 'amber' : 19}
search_age = raw_input("Provide age")
for age in dictionary.values():
    if age == search_age:
        name = dictionary[age]
        print name

I know how to compare and find the age I just don't know how to show the name of the person. Additionally, I am getting a KeyError because of line 5. I know it's not correct but I can't figure out how to make it search backwards.

Answer 1

Here is my take on this problem. :) I have just started learning Python, so I call this:

"The Understandable for beginners" solution.

#Code without comments.

list1 = {'george':16,'amber':19, 'Garry':19}
search_age = raw_input("Provide age: ")
print
search_age = int(search_age)

listByAge = {}

for name, age in list1.items():
    if age == search_age:
        age = str(age)
        results = name + " " +age
        print results

        age2 = int(age)
        listByAge[name] = listByAge.get(name,0)+age2

print
print listByAge

.

#Code with comments.
#I've added another name with the same age to the list.
list1 = {'george':16,'amber':19, 'Garry':19}
#Original code.
search_age = raw_input("Provide age: ")
print
#Because raw_input gives a string, we need to convert it to int,
#so we can search the dictionary list with it.
search_age = int(search_age)

#Here we define another empty dictionary, to store the results in a more 
#permanent way.
listByAge = {}

#We use double variable iteration, so we get both the name and age 
#on each run of the loop.
for name, age in list1.items():
    #Here we check if the User Defined age = the age parameter 
    #for this run of the loop.
    if age == search_age:
        #Here we convert Age back to string, because we will concatenate it 
        #with the person's name. 
        age = str(age)
        #Here we concatenate.
        results = name + " " +age
        #If you want just the names and ages displayed you can delete
        #the code after "print results". If you want them stored, don't...
        print results

        #Here we create a second variable that uses the value of
        #the age for the current person in the list.
        #For example if "Anna" is "10", age2 = 10,
        #integer value which we can use in addition.
        age2 = int(age)
        #Here we use the method that checks or creates values in dictionaries.
        #We create a new entry for each name that matches the User Defined Age
        #with default value of 0, and then we add the value from age2.
        listByAge[name] = listByAge.get(name,0)+age2

#Here we print the new dictionary with the users with User Defined Age.
print
print listByAge

.

#Results
Running: *\test.py (Thu Jun 06 05:10:02 2013)

Provide age: 19

amber 19
Garry 19

{'amber': 19, 'Garry': 19}

Execution Successful!

Answer 2

it's answered, but it could be done with a fancy 'map/reduce' use, e.g.:

def find_key(value, dictionary):
    return reduce(lambda x, y: x if x is not None else y,
                  map(lambda x: x[0] if x[1] == value else None, 
                      dictionary.iteritems()))

Answer 3

one line version: (i is an old dictionary, p is a reversed dictionary)

explanation : i.keys() and i.values() returns two lists with keys and values of the dictionary respectively. The zip function has the ability to tie together lists to produce a dictionary.

warning : This would work only if the values are hashable and unique.

p = dict(zip(i.values(),i.keys()))

Answer 4

for name in mydict.keys():
    if mydict[name] == search_age:
        print name 
        #or do something else with it. 
        #if in a function append to a temporary list, 
        #then after the loop return the list

Answer 5

I know this is old but you could quite easily find all the people in the list with your search age using list comprehension.

ages = {'george':16,'amber':19}
search = 16
print([name for (name, age) in ages.items() if age == search])

Answer 6

If you want to find the key by the value, you can use a dictionary comprehension to create a lookup dictionary and then use that to find the key from the value.

lookup = {value: key for key, value in self.data}
lookup[value]