what do I really mean by unpacking a dictionary? Let’s look at some examples and understand.
Example 1
In this example, we have a dictionary named response. In the format function, we have used ** syntax before the response, which allows us to use keys in the dictionary as variables.
Example 2
Similarly, let’s say we want to pass some arguments to the function (it could be positional or keyword args), we don’t have access values separately by keys, we can use ** before dictionary, and it will “spread” / ”separate” / ”unpack” key values in a dict and pass it to the function.
In the case of keyword argument, make sure argument names are the same as keys in dict object.
Example 3
One more example is where we are unpacking two dictionaries inside a new dictionary, this operation merges our dictionary into a single dictionary.
In short, Unpacking is an operation that assigns elements in a list or dictionary to multiple variables. In the case of a dictionary, a variable name is the same as the key.
In the case of List/Tuple, we use * (single asterisk), and values are assigned as per the position of variables. It is really helpful when we are using positional arguments in a function.
I hope you have understood this concept. * is really useful syntax. We can use it in so many ways, Let’s talk about it in detail some other time.
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Thanks for reading!