Function To Create Nested Dictionary From Lists

I am tasked with the following question, but cannot come up with the right code: This exercise involves building a non-trivial dictionary.The subject is books. The key for each boo

Solution 1:

Use this function, the main change is that I add a d.update:

def build_book_dict(titles, pages, firsts, lasts, locations):
    inputs = zip(titles, pages, firsts, lasts, locations)
    d = {}
    for titles, pages, firsts, lasts, locations in inputs:
        d.update({
            titles : {
                "Pages" : pages,
                "Author" : {
                    "First" : firsts,
                    "Last" : lasts
                            },
                "Publisher" : {
                    "Location" : locations
                                },
                        },
                })

    return d

And now:

print(build_book_dict(titles, pages, firsts, lasts, locations))

Becomes:

{'Harry Potter': {'Pages': 200, 'Author': {'First': 'J.K.', 'Last': 'Rowling'}, 'Publisher': {'Location': 'NYC'}}, 'Fear and Lothing in Las Vegas': {'Pages': 350, 'Author': {'First': 'Hunter', 'Last': 'Thompson'}, 'Publisher': {'Location': 'Aspen'}}}

Your code doesn't work because you're creating a new dictionary every time, not adding the dictionaries together, however d.update overcomes this issue.

Additionally, I rename the variable dict to d, since dict is a default keyword, whereas when you name a variable of dict, you're not able to access the actual dict keyword with that.

Solution 2:

Create the empty dict before the for loop. And then in the loop add to it like so:

defbuild_book_dict(titles, pages, firsts, lasts, locations):
    inputs = zip(titles, pages, firsts, lasts, locations)
    d = dict()
    for titles, pages, firsts, lasts, locations in inputs:
        d[titles] = {whatever}
    return d

Solution 3:

You can use a dictionary comprehension:

titles = ["Harry Potter", "Fear and Lothing in Las Vegas"]
pages = [200, 350]
firsts = ["J.K.", "Hunter"]
lasts = ["Rowling", "Thompson"]
locations = ["NYC", "Aspen"]
data = {a:{'Pages':b, 'Author':{'First':c, 'Last':d}, 'Publisher': {'Location': e}} for a, b, c, d, e in zip(titles, pages, firsts, lasts, locations)}

Output:

{'Harry Potter': {'Pages': 200, 'Author': {'First': 'J.K.', 'Last': 'Rowling'}, 'Publisher': {'Location': 'NYC'}}, 'Fear and Lothing in Las Vegas': {'Pages': 350, 'Author': {'First': 'Hunter', 'Last': 'Thompson'}, 'Publisher': {'Location': 'Aspen'}}}