Is there any pythonic way to combine two dicts (ad

Question

For example I have two dicts:

Dict A: {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}
Dict B: {'b': 3, 'c': 4, 'd': 5}

I need a pythonic way of 'combining' two dicts such that the result is:

{'a': 1, 'b': 5, 'c': 7, 'd': 5}

That is to say: if a key appears in both dicts, add their values, if it appears in only one dict, keep its value.

Answer 1

Use collections.Counter:

>>> from collections import Counter
>>> A = Counter({'a':1, 'b':2, 'c':3})
>>> B = Counter({'b':3, 'c':4, 'd':5})
>>> A + B
Counter({'c': 7, 'b': 5, 'd': 5, 'a': 1})

Counters are basically a subclass of dict, so you can still do everything else with them you'd normally do with that type, such as iterate over their keys and values.

Answer 2

>>> A = {'a':1, 'b':2, 'c':3}
>>> B = {'b':3, 'c':4, 'd':5}
>>> c = {x: A.get(x, 0) + B.get(x, 0) for x in set(A).union(B)}
>>> print(c)

{'a': 1, 'c': 7, 'b': 5, 'd': 5}

Answer 3

What about:

def dict_merge_and_sum( d1, d2 ):
    ret = d1
    ret.update({ k:v + d2[k] for k,v in d1.items() if k in d2 })
    ret.update({ k:v for k,v in d2.items() if k not in d1 })
    return ret

A = {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}
B = {'b': 3, 'c': 4, 'd': 5}

print( dict_merge_and_sum( A, B ) )

Output:

{'d': 5, 'a': 1, 'c': 7, 'b': 5}

Answer 4

import itertools
import collections

dictA = {'a':1, 'b':2, 'c':3}
dictB = {'b':3, 'c':4, 'd':5}

new_dict = collections.defaultdict(int)
# use dict.items() instead of dict.iteritems() for Python3
for k, v in itertools.chain(dictA.iteritems(), dictB.iteritems()):
    new_dict[k] += v

print dict(new_dict)

# OUTPUT
{'a': 1, 'c': 7, 'b': 5, 'd': 5}

OR

Alternative you can use Counter as @Martijn has mentioned above.

Answer 5

Intro: There are the (probably) best solutions. But you have to know it and remember it and sometimes you have to hope that your Python version isn't too old or whatever the issue could be.

Then there are the most 'hacky' solutions. They are great and short but sometimes are hard to understand, to read and to remember.

There is, though, an alternative which is to to try to reinvent the wheel. - Why reinventing the wheel? - Generally because it's a really good way to learn (and sometimes just because the already-existing tool doesn't do exactly what you would like and/or the way you would like it) and the easiest way if you don't know or don't remember the perfect tool for your problem.

So, I propose to reinvent the wheel of the Counter class from the collections module (partially at least):

class MyDict(dict):
    def __add__(self, oth):
        r = self.copy()

        try:
            for key, val in oth.items():
                if key in r:
                    r[key] += val  # You can custom it here
                else:
                    r[key] = val
        except AttributeError:  # In case oth isn't a dict
            return NotImplemented  # The convention when a case isn't handled

        return r

a = MyDict({'a':1, 'b':2, 'c':3})
b = MyDict({'b':3, 'c':4, 'd':5})

print(a+b)  # Output {'a':1, 'b': 5, 'c': 7, 'd': 5}

There would probably others way to implement that and there are already tools to do that but it's always nice to visualize how things would basically works.

Answer 6

The one with no extra imports!

Their is a pythonic standard called EAFP(Easier to Ask for Forgiveness than Permission). Below code is based on that python standard.

# The A and B dictionaries
A = {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}
B = {'b': 3, 'c': 4, 'd': 5}

# The final dictionary. Will contain the final outputs.
newdict = {}

# Make sure every key of A and B get into the final dictionary 'newdict'.
newdict.update(A)
newdict.update(B)

# Iterate through each key of A.
for i in A.keys():

    # If same key exist on B, its values from A and B will add together and
    # get included in the final dictionary 'newdict'.
    try:
        addition = A[i] + B[i]
        newdict[i] = addition

    # If current key does not exist in dictionary B, it will give a KeyError,
    # catch it and continue looping.
    except KeyError:
        continue

EDIT: thanks to jerzyk for his improvement suggestions.