Rename a dictionary key

Question

Is there a way to rename a dictionary key, without reassigning its value to a new name and removing the old name key; and without iterating through dict key/value?

In case of OrderedDict, do the same, while keeping that key's position.

Answer 1

For a regular dict, you can use:

mydict[new_key] = mydict.pop(old_key)

For an OrderedDict, I think you must build an entirely new one using a comprehension.

>>> OrderedDict(zip('123', 'abc'))
OrderedDict([('1', 'a'), ('2', 'b'), ('3', 'c')])
>>> oldkey, newkey = '2', 'potato'
>>> OrderedDict((newkey if k == oldkey else k, v) for k, v in _.viewitems())
OrderedDict([('1', 'a'), ('potato', 'b'), ('3', 'c')])

Modifying the key itself, as this question seems to be asking, is impractical because dict keys are usually immutable objects such as numbers, strings or tuples. Instead of trying to modify the key, reassigning the value to a new key and removing the old key is how you can achieve the "rename" in python.

Answer 2

best method in 1 line:

>>> d = {'test':[0,1,2]}
>>> d['test2'] = d.pop('test')
>>> d
{'test2': [0, 1, 2]}

Answer 3

Using a check for newkey!=oldkey, this way you can do:

if newkey!=oldkey:  
    dictionary[newkey] = dictionary[oldkey]
    del dictionary[oldkey]

Answer 4

You can use this OrderedDict recipe written by Raymond Hettinger and modify it to add a rename method, but this is going to be a O(N) in complexity:

def rename(self,key,new_key):
    ind = self._keys.index(key)  #get the index of old key, O(N) operation
    self._keys[ind] = new_key    #replace old key with new key in self._keys
    self[new_key] = self[key]    #add the new key, this is added at the end of self._keys
    self._keys.pop(-1)           #pop the last item in self._keys

Example:

dic = OrderedDict((("a",1),("b",2),("c",3)))
print dic
dic.rename("a","foo")
dic.rename("b","bar")
dic["d"] = 5
dic.rename("d","spam")
for k,v in  dic.items():
    print k,v

output:

OrderedDict({'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3})
foo 1
bar 2
c 3
spam 5

Answer 5

Other answers are pretty good.But in python3.6, regular dict also has order. So it's hard to keep key's position in normal case.

def rename(old_dict,old_name,new_name):
    new_dict = {}
    for key,value in zip(old_dict.keys(),old_dict.values()):
        new_key = key if key != old_name else new_name
        new_dict[new_key] = old_dict[key]
    return new_dict

Answer 6

A few people before me mentioned the .pop trick to delete and create a key in a one-liner.

I personally find the more explicit implementation more readable:

d = {'a': 1, 'b': 2}
v = d['b']
del d['b']
d['c'] = v

The code above returns {'a': 1, 'c': 2}