tuple list from dict in python

Question

How can I obtain a list of key-value tuples from a dict in python? Thanks

Answer 1

For Python 2.x only (thanks Alex):

yourdict = {}
# ...
items = yourdict.items()

See http://docs.python.org/library/stdtypes.html#dict.items for details.

For Python 3.x only (taken from Alex's answer):

yourdict = {}
# ...
items = list(yourdict.items())

Answer 2

For a list of of tuples:

my_dict.items()

If all you're doing is iterating over the items, however, it is often preferable to use dict.iteritems(), which is more memory efficient because it returns only one item at a time, rather than all items at once:

for key,value in my_dict.iteritems():
     #do stuff

Answer 3

In Python 2.*, thedict.items(), as in @Andrew's answer. In Python 3.*, list(thedict.items()) (since there items is just an iterable view, not a list, you need to call list on it explicitly if you need exactly a list).