Python reverse / invert a mapping

Question

Given a dictionary like so:

my_map = { 'a': 1, 'b':2 }

How can one invert this map to get:

inv_map = { 1: 'a', 2: 'b' }

EDITOR NOTE: map changed to my_map to avoid conflicts with the built-in function, map. Some comments may be affected below.

Answer 1

Not something completely different, just a bit rewritten recipe from Cookbook. It's futhermore optimized by retaining setdefault method, instead of each time getting it through the instance:

def inverse(mapping):
    '''
    A function to inverse mapping, collecting keys with simillar values
    in list. Careful to retain original type and to be fast.
    >> d = dict(a=1, b=2, c=1, d=3, e=2, f=1, g=5, h=2)
    >> inverse(d)
    {1: ['f', 'c', 'a'], 2: ['h', 'b', 'e'], 3: ['d'], 5: ['g']}
    '''
    res = {}
    setdef = res.setdefault
    for key, value in mapping.items():
        setdef(value, []).append(key)
    return res if mapping.__class__==dict else mapping.__class__(res)

Designed to be run under CPython 3.x, for 2.x replace mapping.items() with mapping.iteritems()

On my machine runs a bit faster, than other examples here

Answer 2

This expands upon the answer Python reverse / invert a mapping, applying to when the values in the dict aren't unique.

class ReversibleDict(dict):

    def reversed(self):
        """
        Return a reversed dict, with common values in the original dict
        grouped into a list in the returned dict.

        Example:
        >>> d = ReversibleDict({'a': 3, 'c': 2, 'b': 2, 'e': 3, 'd': 1, 'f': 2})
        >>> d.reversed()
        {1: ['d'], 2: ['c', 'b', 'f'], 3: ['a', 'e']}
        """

        revdict = {}
        for k, v in self.iteritems():
            revdict.setdefault(v, []).append(k)
        return revdict

The implementation is limited in that you cannot use reversed twice and get the original back. It is not symmetric as such. It is tested with Python 2.6. Here is a use case of how I am using to print the resultant dict.

If you'd rather use a set than a list, and there are applications for which this makes sense, instead of setdefault(v, []).append(k), use setdefault(v, set()).add(k).

Answer 3

In addition to the other functions suggested above, if you like lambdas:

invert = lambda mydict: {v:k for k, v in mydict.items()}

Or, you could do it this way too:

invert = lambda mydict: dict( zip(mydict.values(), mydict.keys()) )

Answer 4

Adding my 2 cents of pythonic way:

inv_map = dict(map(reversed, my_map.items()))

Example:

In [7]: my_map
Out[7]: {1: 'one', 2: 'two', 3: 'three'}

In [8]: inv_map = dict(map(reversed, my_map.items()))

In [9]: inv_map
Out[9]: {'one': 1, 'three': 3, 'two': 2}

Answer 5

def invertDictionary(d):
    myDict = {}
  for i in d:
     value = d.get(i)
     myDict.setdefault(value,[]).append(i)   
 return myDict
 print invertDictionary({'a':1, 'b':2, 'c':3 , 'd' : 1})

This will provide output as : {1: ['a', 'd'], 2: ['b'], 3: ['c']}

Answer 6

I think the best way to do this is to define a class. Here is an implementation of a "symmetric dictionary":

class SymDict:
    def __init__(self):
        self.aToB = {}
        self.bToA = {}

    def assocAB(self, a, b):
        # Stores and returns a tuple (a,b) of overwritten bindings
        currB = None
        if a in self.aToB: currB = self.bToA[a]
        currA = None
        if b in self.bToA: currA = self.aToB[b]

        self.aToB[a] = b
        self.bToA[b] = a
        return (currA, currB)

    def lookupA(self, a):
        if a in self.aToB:
            return self.aToB[a]
        return None

    def lookupB(self, b):
        if b in self.bToA:
            return self.bToA[b]
        return None

Deletion and iteration methods are easy enough to implement if they're needed.

This implementation is way more efficient than inverting an entire dictionary (which seems to be the most popular solution on this page). Not to mention, you can add or remove values from your SymDict as much as you want, and your inverse-dictionary will always stay valid -- this isn't true if you simply reverse the entire dictionary once.