This module implements specialized container datatypes providing alternatives to Python’s general purpose built-in containers, dict, list, set, and tuple.
| namedtuple() | factory function for creating tuple subclasses with named fields |
| deque | list-like container with fast appends and pops on either end |
| Counter | dict subclass for counting hashable objects |
| OrderedDict | dict subclass that remembers the order entries were added |
| defaultdict | dict subclass that calls a factory function to supply missing values |
| UserDict | wrapper around dictionary objects for easier dict subclassing |
| UserList | wrapper around list objects for easier list subclassing |
| UserString | wrapper around string objects for easier string subclassing |
In addition to the concrete container classes, the collections module provides ABCs (abstract base classes) that can be used to test whether a class provides a particular interface, for example, whether it is hashable or a mapping.
A counter tool is provided to support convenient and rapid tallies. For example:
>>> # Tally occurrences of words in a list
>>> cnt = Counter()
>>> for word in ['red', 'blue', 'red', 'green', 'blue', 'blue']:
... cnt[word] += 1
>>> cnt
Counter({'blue': 3, 'red': 2, 'green': 1})
>>> # Find the ten most common words in Hamlet
>>> import re
>>> words = re.findall('\w+', open('hamlet.txt').read().lower())
>>> Counter(words).most_common(10)
[('the', 1143), ('and', 966), ('to', 762), ('of', 669), ('i', 631),
('you', 554), ('a', 546), ('my', 514), ('hamlet', 471), ('in', 451)]
A Counter is a dict subclass for counting hashable objects. It is an unordered collection where elements are stored as dictionary keys and their counts are stored as dictionary values. Counts are allowed to be any integer value including zero or negative counts. The Counter class is similar to bags or multisets in other languages.
Elements are counted from an iterable or initialized from another mapping (or counter):
>>> c = Counter() # a new, empty counter
>>> c = Counter('gallahad') # a new counter from an iterable
>>> c = Counter({'red': 4, 'blue': 2}) # a new counter from a mapping
>>> c = Counter(cats=4, dogs=8) # a new counter from keyword args
Counter objects have a dictionary interface except that they return a zero count for missing items instead of raising a KeyError:
>>> c = Counter(['eggs', 'ham'])
>>> c['bacon'] # count of a missing element is zero
0
Setting a count to zero does not remove an element from a counter. Use del to remove it entirely:
>>> c['sausage'] = 0 # counter entry with a zero count
>>> del c['sausage'] # del actually removes the entry
New in version 3.1.
Counter objects support two methods beyond those available for all dictionaries:
Return an iterator over elements repeating each as many times as its count. Elements are returned in arbitrary order. If an element’s count is less than one, elements() will ignore it.
>>> c = Counter(a=4, b=2, c=0, d=-2)
>>> list(c.elements())
['a', 'a', 'a', 'a', 'b', 'b']
Return a list of the n most common elements and their counts from the most common to the least. If n is not specified, most_common() returns all elements in the counter. Elements with equal counts are ordered arbitrarily:
>>> Counter('abracadabra').most_common(3)
[('a', 5), ('r', 2), ('b', 2)]
The usual dictionary methods are available for Counter objects except for two which work differently for counters.
Common patterns for working with Counter objects:
sum(c.values()) # total of all counts
c.clear() # reset all counts
list(c) # list unique elements
set(c) # convert to a set
dict(c) # convert to a regular dictionary
c.items() # convert to a list of (elem, cnt) pairs
Counter(dict(list_of_pairs)) # convert from a list of (elem, cnt) pairs
c.most_common()[:-n:-1] # n least common elements
c += Counter() # remove zero and negative counts
Several mathematical operations are provided for combining Counter objects to produce multisets (counters that have counts greater than zero). Addition and subtraction combine counters by adding or subtracting the counts of corresponding elements. Intersection and union return the minimum and maximum of corresponding counts. Each operation can accept inputs with signed counts, but the output will exclude results with counts of zero or less.
>>> c = Counter(a=3, b=1)
>>> d = Counter(a=1, b=2)
>>> c + d # add two counters together: c[x] + d[x]
Counter({'a': 4, 'b': 3})
>>> c - d # subtract (keeping only positive counts)
Counter({'a': 2})
>>> c & d # intersection: min(c[x], d[x])
Counter({'a': 1, 'b': 1})
>>> c | d # union: max(c[x], d[x])
Counter({'a': 3, 'b': 2})
Note
Counters were primarily designed to work with positive integers to represent running counts; however, care was taken to not unnecessarily preclude use cases needing other types or negative values. To help with those use cases, this section documents the minimum range and type restrictions.
See also
Counter class adapted for Python 2.5 and an early Bag recipe for Python 2.4.
Bag class in Smalltalk.
Wikipedia entry for Multisets.
C++ multisets tutorial with examples.
For mathematical operations on multisets and their use cases, see Knuth, Donald. The Art of Computer Programming Volume II, Section 4.6.3, Exercise 19.
To enumerate all distinct multisets of a given size over a given set of elements, see itertools.combinations_with_replacement().
map(Counter, combinations_with_replacement(‘ABC’, 2)) –> AA AB AC BB BC CC
Returns a new deque object initialized left-to-right (using append()) with data from iterable. If iterable is not specified, the new deque is empty.
Deques are a generalization of stacks and queues (the name is pronounced “deck” and is short for “double-ended queue”). Deques support thread-safe, memory efficient appends and pops from either side of the deque with approximately the same O(1) performance in either direction.
Though list objects support similar operations, they are optimized for fast fixed-length operations and incur O(n) memory movement costs for pop(0) and insert(0, v) operations which change both the size and position of the underlying data representation.
If maxlen is not specified or is None, deques may grow to an arbitrary length. Otherwise, the deque is bounded to the specified maximum length. Once a bounded length deque is full, when new items are added, a corresponding number of items are discarded from the opposite end. Bounded length deques provide functionality similar to the tail filter in Unix. They are also useful for tracking transactions and other pools of data where only the most recent activity is of interest.
Deque objects support the following methods:
Deque objects also provide one read-only attribute:
Maximum size of a deque or None if unbounded.
New in version 3.1.
In addition to the above, deques support iteration, pickling, len(d), reversed(d), copy.copy(d), copy.deepcopy(d), membership testing with the in operator, and subscript references such as d[-1]. Indexed access is O(1) at both ends but slows to O(n) in the middle. For fast random access, use lists instead.
Example:
>>> from collections import deque
>>> d = deque('ghi') # make a new deque with three items
>>> for elem in d: # iterate over the deque's elements
... print(elem.upper())
G
H
I
>>> d.append('j') # add a new entry to the right side
>>> d.appendleft('f') # add a new entry to the left side
>>> d # show the representation of the deque
deque(['f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j'])
>>> d.pop() # return and remove the rightmost item
'j'
>>> d.popleft() # return and remove the leftmost item
'f'
>>> list(d) # list the contents of the deque
['g', 'h', 'i']
>>> d[0] # peek at leftmost item
'g'
>>> d[-1] # peek at rightmost item
'i'
>>> list(reversed(d)) # list the contents of a deque in reverse
['i', 'h', 'g']
>>> 'h' in d # search the deque
True
>>> d.extend('jkl') # add multiple elements at once
>>> d
deque(['g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k', 'l'])
>>> d.rotate(1) # right rotation
>>> d
deque(['l', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k'])
>>> d.rotate(-1) # left rotation
>>> d
deque(['g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k', 'l'])
>>> deque(reversed(d)) # make a new deque in reverse order
deque(['l', 'k', 'j', 'i', 'h', 'g'])
>>> d.clear() # empty the deque
>>> d.pop() # cannot pop from an empty deque
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#6>", line 1, in -toplevel-
d.pop()
IndexError: pop from an empty deque
>>> d.extendleft('abc') # extendleft() reverses the input order
>>> d
deque(['c', 'b', 'a'])
This section shows various approaches to working with deques.
Bounded length deques provide functionality similar to the tail filter in Unix:
def tail(filename, n=10):
'Return the last n lines of a file'
return deque(open(filename), n)
Another approach to using deques is to maintain a sequence of recently added elements by appending to the right and popping to the left:
def moving_average(iterable, n=3):
# moving_average([40, 30, 50, 46, 39, 44]) --> 40.0 42.0 45.0 43.0
# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_average
it = iter(iterable)
d = deque(itertools.islice(it, n-1))
d.appendleft(0)
s = sum(d)
for elem in it:
s += elem - d.popleft()
d.append(elem)
yield s / n
The rotate() method provides a way to implement deque slicing and deletion. For example, a pure Python implementation of del d[n] relies on the rotate() method to position elements to be popped:
def delete_nth(d, n):
d.rotate(-n)
d.popleft()
d.rotate(n)
To implement deque slicing, use a similar approach applying rotate() to bring a target element to the left side of the deque. Remove old entries with popleft(), add new entries with extend(), and then reverse the rotation. With minor variations on that approach, it is easy to implement Forth style stack manipulations such as dup, drop, swap, over, pick, rot, and roll.
Returns a new dictionary-like object. defaultdict is a subclass of the built-in dict class. It overrides one method and adds one writable instance variable. The remaining functionality is the same as for the dict class and is not documented here.
The first argument provides the initial value for the default_factory attribute; it defaults to None. All remaining arguments are treated the same as if they were passed to the dict constructor, including keyword arguments.
defaultdict objects support the following method in addition to the standard dict operations:
If the default_factory attribute is None, this raises a KeyError exception with the key as argument.
If default_factory is not None, it is called without arguments to provide a default value for the given key, this value is inserted in the dictionary for the key, and returned.
If calling default_factory raises an exception this exception is propagated unchanged.
This method is called by the __getitem__() method of the dict class when the requested key is not found; whatever it returns or raises is then returned or raised by __getitem__().
defaultdict objects support the following instance variable:
Using list as the default_factory, it is easy to group a sequence of key-value pairs into a dictionary of lists:
>>> s = [('yellow', 1), ('blue', 2), ('yellow', 3), ('blue', 4), ('red', 1)]
>>> d = defaultdict(list)
>>> for k, v in s:
... d[k].append(v)
...
>>> list(d.items())
[('blue', [2, 4]), ('red', [1]), ('yellow', [1, 3])]
When each key is encountered for the first time, it is not already in the mapping; so an entry is automatically created using the default_factory function which returns an empty list. The list.append() operation then attaches the value to the new list. When keys are encountered again, the look-up proceeds normally (returning the list for that key) and the list.append() operation adds another value to the list. This technique is simpler and faster than an equivalent technique using dict.setdefault():
>>> d = {}
>>> for k, v in s:
... d.setdefault(k, []).append(v)
...
>>> list(d.items())
[('blue', [2, 4]), ('red', [1]), ('yellow', [1, 3])]
Setting the default_factory to int makes the defaultdict useful for counting (like a bag or multiset in other languages):
>>> s = 'mississippi'
>>> d = defaultdict(int)
>>> for k in s:
... d[k] += 1
...
>>> list(d.items())
[('i', 4), ('p', 2), ('s', 4), ('m', 1)]
When a letter is first encountered, it is missing from the mapping, so the default_factory function calls int() to supply a default count of zero. The increment operation then builds up the count for each letter.
The function int() which always returns zero is just a special case of constant functions. A faster and more flexible way to create constant functions is to use a lambda function which can supply any constant value (not just zero):
>>> def constant_factory(value):
... return lambda: value
>>> d = defaultdict(constant_factory('<missing>'))
>>> d.update(name='John', action='ran')
>>> '%(name)s %(action)s to %(object)s' % d
'John ran to <missing>'
Setting the default_factory to set makes the defaultdict useful for building a dictionary of sets:
>>> s = [('red', 1), ('blue', 2), ('red', 3), ('blue', 4), ('red', 1), ('blue', 4)]
>>> d = defaultdict(set)
>>> for k, v in s:
... d[k].add(v)
...
>>> list(d.items())
[('blue', set([2, 4])), ('red', set([1, 3]))]
Named tuples assign meaning to each position in a tuple and allow for more readable, self-documenting code. They can be used wherever regular tuples are used, and they add the ability to access fields by name instead of position index.
Returns a new tuple subclass named typename. The new subclass is used to create tuple-like objects that have fields accessible by attribute lookup as well as being indexable and iterable. Instances of the subclass also have a helpful docstring (with typename and field_names) and a helpful __repr__() method which lists the tuple contents in a name=value format.
The field_names are a single string with each fieldname separated by whitespace and/or commas, for example 'x y' or 'x, y'. Alternatively, field_names can be a sequence of strings such as ['x', 'y'].
Any valid Python identifier may be used for a fieldname except for names starting with an underscore. Valid identifiers consist of letters, digits, and underscores but do not start with a digit or underscore and cannot be a keyword such as class, for, return, global, pass, or raise.
If rename is true, invalid fieldnames are automatically replaced with positional names. For example, ['abc', 'def', 'ghi', 'abc'] is converted to ['abc', '_1', 'ghi', '_3'], eliminating the keyword def and the duplicate fieldname abc.
If verbose is true, the class definition is printed just before being built.
Named tuple instances do not have per-instance dictionaries, so they are lightweight and require no more memory than regular tuples.
Changed in version 3.1: Added support for rename.
Example:
>>> Point = namedtuple('Point', 'x y', verbose=True)
class Point(tuple):
'Point(x, y)'
__slots__ = ()
_fields = ('x', 'y')
def __new__(_cls, x, y):
return _tuple.__new__(_cls, (x, y))
@classmethod
def _make(cls, iterable, new=tuple.__new__, len=len):
'Make a new Point object from a sequence or iterable'
result = new(cls, iterable)
if len(result) != 2:
raise TypeError('Expected 2 arguments, got %d' % len(result))
return result
def __repr__(self):
return 'Point(x=%r, y=%r)' % self
def _asdict(self):
'Return a new OrderedDict which maps field names to their values'
return OrderedDict(zip(self._fields, self))
def _replace(_self, **kwds):
'Return a new Point object replacing specified fields with new values'
result = _self._make(map(kwds.pop, ('x', 'y'), _self))
if kwds:
raise ValueError('Got unexpected field names: %r' % list(kwds.keys()))
return result
def __getnewargs__(self):
return tuple(self)
x = _property(_itemgetter(0))
y = _property(_itemgetter(1))
>>> p = Point(11, y=22) # instantiate with positional or keyword arguments
>>> p[0] + p[1] # indexable like the plain tuple (11, 22)
33
>>> x, y = p # unpack like a regular tuple
>>> x, y
(11, 22)
>>> p.x + p.y # fields also accessible by name
33
>>> p # readable __repr__ with a name=value style
Point(x=11, y=22)
Named tuples are especially useful for assigning field names to result tuples returned by the csv or sqlite3 modules:
EmployeeRecord = namedtuple('EmployeeRecord', 'name, age, title, department, paygrade')
import csv
for emp in map(EmployeeRecord._make, csv.reader(open("employees.csv", "rb"))):
print(emp.name, emp.title)
import sqlite3
conn = sqlite3.connect('/companydata')
cursor = conn.cursor()
cursor.execute('SELECT name, age, title, department, paygrade FROM employees')
for emp in map(EmployeeRecord._make, cursor.fetchall()):
print(emp.name, emp.title)
In addition to the methods inherited from tuples, named tuples support three additional methods and one attribute. To prevent conflicts with field names, the method and attribute names start with an underscore.
>>> t = [11, 22]
>>> Point._make(t)
Point(x=11, y=22)
Return a new OrderedDict which maps field names to their corresponding values:
>>> p._asdict()
OrderedDict([('x', 11), ('y', 22)])
Changed in version 3.1: Returns an OrderedDict instead of a regular dict.
>>> p = Point(x=11, y=22)
>>> p._replace(x=33)
Point(x=33, y=22)
>>> for partnum, record in inventory.items():
... inventory[partnum] = record._replace(price=newprices[partnum], timestamp=time.now())
>>> p._fields # view the field names
('x', 'y')
>>> Color = namedtuple('Color', 'red green blue')
>>> Pixel = namedtuple('Pixel', Point._fields + Color._fields)
>>> Pixel(11, 22, 128, 255, 0)
Pixel(x=11, y=22, red=128, green=255, blue=0)
To retrieve a field whose name is stored in a string, use the getattr() function:
>>> getattr(p, 'x')
11
To convert a dictionary to a named tuple, use the double-star-operator (as described in Unpacking Argument Lists):
>>> d = {'x': 11, 'y': 22}
>>> Point(**d)
Point(x=11, y=22)
Since a named tuple is a regular Python class, it is easy to add or change functionality with a subclass. Here is how to add a calculated field and a fixed-width print format:
>>> class Point(namedtuple('Point', 'x y')): ... __slots__ = () ... @property ... def hypot(self): ... return (self.x ** 2 + self.y ** 2) ** 0.5 ... def __str__(self): ... return 'Point: x=%6.3f y=%6.3f hypot=%6.3f' % (self.x, self.y, self.hypot)>>> for p in Point(3, 4), Point(14, 5/7): ... print(p) Point: x= 3.000 y= 4.000 hypot= 5.000 Point: x=14.000 y= 0.714 hypot=14.018
The subclass shown above sets __slots__ to an empty tuple. This helps keep memory requirements low by preventing the creation of instance dictionaries.
Subclassing is not useful for adding new, stored fields. Instead, simply create a new named tuple type from the _fields attribute:
>>> Point3D = namedtuple('Point3D', Point._fields + ('z',))
Default values can be implemented by using _replace() to customize a prototype instance:
>>> Account = namedtuple('Account', 'owner balance transaction_count')
>>> default_account = Account('<owner name>', 0.0, 0)
>>> johns_account = default_account._replace(owner='John')
Enumerated constants can be implemented with named tuples, but it is simpler and more efficient to use a simple class declaration:
>>> Status = namedtuple('Status', 'open pending closed')._make(range(3))
>>> Status.open, Status.pending, Status.closed
(0, 1, 2)
>>> class Status:
... open, pending, closed = range(3)
See also
Named tuple recipe adapted for Python 2.4.
Ordered dictionaries are just like regular dictionaries but they remember the order that items were inserted. When iterating over an ordered dictionary, the items are returned in the order their keys were first added.
Return an instance of a dict subclass, supporting the usual dict methods. An OrderedDict is a dict that remembers the order that keys were first inserted. If a new entry overwrites an existing entry, the original insertion position is left unchanged. Deleting an entry and reinserting it will move it to the end.
New in version 3.1.
In addition to the usual mapping methods, ordered dictionaries also support reverse iteration using reversed().
Equality tests between OrderedDict objects are order-sensitive and are implemented as list(od1.items())==list(od2.items()). Equality tests between OrderedDict objects and other Mapping objects are order-insensitive like regular dictionaries. This allows OrderedDict objects to be substituted anywhere a regular dictionary is used.
The OrderedDict constructor and update() method both accept keyword arguments, but their order is lost because Python’s function call semantics pass-in keyword arguments using a regular unordered dictionary.
See also
Equivalent OrderedDict recipe that runs on Python 2.4 or later.
Since an ordered dictionary remembers its insertion order, it can be used in conjuction with sorting to make a sorted dictionary:
>>> # regular unsorted dictionary
>>> d = {'banana': 3, 'apple':4, 'pear': 1, 'orange': 2}
>>> # dictionary sorted by key
>>> OrderedDict(sorted(d.items(), key=lambda t: t[0]))
OrderedDict([('apple', 4), ('banana', 3), ('orange', 2), ('pear', 1)])
>>> # dictionary sorted by value
>>> OrderedDict(sorted(d.items(), key=lambda t: t[1]))
OrderedDict([('pear', 1), ('orange', 2), ('banana', 3), ('apple', 4)])
>>> # dictionary sorted by length of the key string
>>> OrderedDict(sorted(d.items(), key=lambda t: len(t[0])))
OrderedDict([('pear', 1), ('apple', 4), ('orange', 2), ('banana', 3)])
The new sorted dictionaries maintain their sort order when entries are deleted. But when new keys are added, the keys are appended to the end and the sort is not maintained.
It is also straight-forward to create an ordered dictionary variant that the remembers the order the keys were last inserted. If a new entry overwrites an existing entry, the original insertion position is changed and moved to the end:
class LastUpdatedOrderedDict(OrderedDict):
'Store items is the order the keys were last added'
def __setitem__(self, key, value):
if key in self:
del self[key]
OrderedDict.__setitem__(self, key, value)
The class, UserDict acts as a wrapper around dictionary objects. The need for this class has been partially supplanted by the ability to subclass directly from dict; however, this class can be easier to work with because the underlying dictionary is accessible as an attribute.
Class that simulates a dictionary. The instance’s contents are kept in a regular dictionary, which is accessible via the data attribute of UserDict instances. If initialdata is provided, data is initialized with its contents; note that a reference to initialdata will not be kept, allowing it be used for other purposes.
In addition to supporting the methods and operations of mappings, UserDict instances provide the following attribute:
This class acts as a wrapper around list objects. It is a useful base class for your own list-like classes which can inherit from them and override existing methods or add new ones. In this way, one can add new behaviors to lists.
The need for this class has been partially supplanted by the ability to subclass directly from list; however, this class can be easier to work with because the underlying list is accessible as an attribute.
Class that simulates a list. The instance’s contents are kept in a regular list, which is accessible via the data attribute of UserList instances. The instance’s contents are initially set to a copy of list, defaulting to the empty list []. list can be any iterable, for example a real Python list or a UserList object.
In addition to supporting the methods and operations of mutable sequences, UserList instances provide the following attribute:
Subclassing requirements: Subclasses of UserList are expect to offer a constructor which can be called with either no arguments or one argument. List operations which return a new sequence attempt to create an instance of the actual implementation class. To do so, it assumes that the constructor can be called with a single parameter, which is a sequence object used as a data source.
If a derived class does not wish to comply with this requirement, all of the special methods supported by this class will need to be overridden; please consult the sources for information about the methods which need to be provided in that case.
The class, UserString acts as a wrapper around string objects. The need for this class has been partially supplanted by the ability to subclass directly from str; however, this class can be easier to work with because the underlying string is accessible as an attribute.
The collections module offers the following ABCs:
| ABC | Inherits | Abstract Methods | Mixin Methods |
|---|---|---|---|
| Container | __contains__ | ||
| Hashable | __hash__ | ||
| Iterable | __iter__ | ||
| Iterator | Iterable | __next__ | __iter__ |
| Sized | __len__ | ||
| Callable | __call__ | ||
| Sequence | Sized, Iterable, Container | __getitem__ | __contains__. __iter__, __reversed__. index, and count |
| MutableSequence | Sequence | __setitem__ __delitem__, and insert | Inherited Sequence methods and append, reverse, extend, pop, remove, and __iadd__ |
| Set | Sized, Iterable, Container | __le__, __lt__, __eq__, __ne__, __gt__, __ge__, __and__, __or__ __sub__, __xor__, and isdisjoint | |
| MutableSet | Set | add and discard | Inherited Set methods and clear, pop, remove, __ior__, __iand__, __ixor__, and __isub__ |
| Mapping | Sized, Iterable, Container | __getitem__ | __contains__, keys, items, values, get, __eq__, and __ne__ |
| MutableMapping | Mapping | __setitem__ and __delitem__ | Inherited Mapping methods and pop, popitem, clear, update, and setdefault |
| MappingView | Sized | __len__ | |
| KeysView | MappingView, Set | __contains__, __iter__ | |
| ItemsView | MappingView, Set | __contains__, __iter__ | |
| ValuesView | MappingView | __contains__, __iter__ |
These ABCs allow us to ask classes or instances if they provide particular functionality, for example:
size = None
if isinstance(myvar, collections.Sized):
size = len(myvar)
Several of the ABCs are also useful as mixins that make it easier to develop classes supporting container APIs. For example, to write a class supporting the full Set API, it only necessary to supply the three underlying abstract methods: __contains__(), __iter__(), and __len__(). The ABC supplies the remaining methods such as __and__() and isdisjoint()
class ListBasedSet(collections.Set):
''' Alternate set implementation favoring space over speed
and not requiring the set elements to be hashable. '''
def __init__(self, iterable):
self.elements = lst = []
for value in iterable:
if value not in lst:
lst.append(value)
def __iter__(self):
return iter(self.elements)
def __contains__(self, value):
return value in self.elements
def __len__(self):
return len(self.elements)
s1 = ListBasedSet('abcdef')
s2 = ListBasedSet('defghi')
overlap = s1 & s2 # The __and__() method is supported automatically
Notes on using Set and MutableSet as a mixin:
See also